Star Wars 9

[Totenkindly]

Maybe this release weekend would have gone better if they had merged both major films into one: "The Cats of Skywalker."

You know, where the Knights of Jellicle come together to decide which character needs to be sacrificed to the gods in hopes that the Force will allow them to be reborn into a far better life.

 

[Totenkindly]

I was listening to this video that my eldest sent me, from the "half in the bag" guys, their review of the film. Some of their comments are pretty funny.

I like the way they joked about the barely seen lesbian kiss in the background after the Resistance wins, which is barely a blip in the consciousness and doesn't really count as a landmark of any kind -- one of them called it "passive progressive."

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Maybe this release weekend would have gone better if they had merged both major films into one: "The Cats of Skywalker."

You know, where the Knights of Jellicle come together to decide which character needs to be sacrificed to the gods in hopes that the Force will allow them to be reborn into a far better life.

That might have showed greater consistency with the past films in the trilogy.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Rise of Skywalker review: Episode Xiii:

Missed opportunities

I like that Rey built a new lightsaber, but why didn't they have her do that after Anakin's was destroyed. I'm so irritated by the obsession J.J has with that lightsaber that killed a bunch of children. It's not particularly important in-universe, at least not relative to any other lightsaber. I mean, it had importance to Luke and Kylo because of father/grandfather stuff respectively, but Rey does not believe herself to be a Skywalker. There is no reason for her to fix that saber instead of building her own. I wanted to
see her build her own (and so did lots of other people, I suspect), and I always liked the green one better anyway (headcanon is that Kylo "bled" that to make his own).

The only reason it's made that important here is because of nostalgia, because it's in ANH and Empire and those are the two movies everybody likes. But, there's no real reason for continue to use it to build her own, so why give her a new saber in this movie and then barely have her use it?

I also think it's a missed opportunity for her not to use a double-bladed lightsaber in something other than a vision (and I always knew that's exactly what it was). Her weapon of choice in TFA was a staff. She even practices with a staff on Ach-To. It's a logical decision! I guess it didn't push enough nostalgia buttons to occur to J.J, since we only ever see one in TPM. It would also be a great way to contrast the ascendancy of the Sith with the ascendancy of the Jedi.

I would have settled with the yellow blade if she actually used that at all, though.

The choice of planets for the montage shown at the end is baffling. Why the hell would we see Bespin, which is only really seen once (unless you count seeing the same thing at the end of ROTJ), but not Coruscant? I suspect the answer only boils down to "Bespin was in ESB, and Coruscant was in the prequels". Endor also doesn't make any sense. Did the Ewoks build a hyperspace ram out of logs and rocks? Who was supposed to have destroyed that Star Destroyer? They're even in the Endor system earlier in the movie, and there's no mention of any resistance OR First Order ships. The one I did like Was Jakku, because I liked seeing new wreckage fall besides the old one.

They really should have explained at some point why the hell Anakin Skywalker's spirit never reached out to his grandson if they weren't up for showing his ghost at all. It's a really big loose end, IMO.

Also, I'm annoyed that the galaxy is at the same state as at the end of ROTJ and they don't include anything explaining why this time might be different. I'm not sure why they would throw in vague intimations that Finn is force sensitive without doing anything like that.

The dyad thing doesn't really seem to amount to that much. I love the shot of Ben and Rey facing Palpatine together.... there should have been much more than that. I don't object to killing Ben off but they didn't enough with him before that happened (and the way it happened was also really hackneyed).

In defense of the ultimate ending, I will say this: The argument that the whole saga is pointless because "Palpatine wins" is bizarre. Palpatine's goal wasn't really for his bloodline to survive (except perhaps as a means to an end), it was to rule the galaxy with an iron fist. How TF does he win because his granddaughter survives who opposes everything he stands for? He only ever mentioned "destroying the Skywalker bloodline" in this movie; it was never mentioned before, and I suspect it was more of a tiny item on his checklist rather than his ultimate goal.

All this sudden emphasis on the "Skywalker bloodline" from fans is bizarre. Two generations of them went bad, so maybe it's not such an equivocally good thing for the galaxy?

Oh, and that shot of that massive fleet of ships is a major cocktease. I was actually excited about this movie because I thought we were going the Battle of Endor on steroids, and then... they don't really show it. Why is J.J so adverse to showing actual space battles in STAR WARS? That whole thing is probably the most egregious missed opportunity in the movie. It's utterly baffling. Technology has improved so much since 1983, so why the reluctance to show an epic, large scale battle? It is such a tease. We have massive fleets of good guy ships and massive fleets of star destroyers, and they barely even show them clash. Most of the "money shots" there are in the trailers.

You know what I want to in a Star Wars movie? It's not Chewie getting his medal. It's space battles (or at least "upper atmosphere battles").

Well, that's all I can think of for now.

 

[Totenkindly]

Rise of Skywalker review: Episode Xiii:

Missed opportunities

I like that Rey built a new lightsaber, but why didn't they have her do that after Anakin's was destroyed. I'm so irritated by the obsession J.J has with that lightsaber that killed a bunch of children. It's not particularly important in-universe, at least not relative to any other lightsaber. I mean, it had importance to Luke and Kylo because of father/grandfather stuff respectively, but Rey does not believe herself to be a Skywalker. There is no reason for her to fix that saber instead of building her own. I wanted to
see her build her own (and so did lots of other people, I suspect), and I always liked the green one better anyway (headcanon is that Kylo "bled" that to make his own).

The only reason it's made that important here is because of nostalgia, because it's in ANH and Empire and those are the two movies everybody likes. But, there's no real reason for continue to use it to build her own, so why give her a new saber in this movie and then barely have her use it?

I also think it's a missed opportunity for her not to use a double-bladed lightsaber in something other than a vision (and I always knew that's exactly what it was). Her weapon of choice in TFA was a staff. She even practices with a staff on Ach-To. It's a logical decision! I guess it didn't push enough nostalgia buttons to occur to J.J, since we only ever see one in TPM. It would also be a great way to contrast the ascendancy of the Sith with the ascendancy of the Jedi.

I would have settled with the yellow blade if she actually used that at all, though.

The choice of planets for the montage shown at the end is baffling. Why the hell would we see Bespin, which is only really seen once (unless you count seeing the same thing at the end of ROTJ), but not Coruscant? I suspect the answer only boils down to "Bespin was in ESB, and Coruscant was in the prequels". Endor also doesn't make any sense. Did the Ewoks build a hyperspace ram out of logs and rocks? Who was supposed to have destroyed that Star Destroyer? They're even in the Endor system earlier in the movie, and there's no mention of any resistance OR First Order ships. The one I did like Was Jakku, because I liked seeing new wreckage fall besides the old one.

They really should have explained at some point why the hell Anakin Skywalker's spirit never reached out to his grandson if they weren't up for showing his ghost at all. It's a really big loose end, IMO.

Also, I'm annoyed that the galaxy is at the same state as at the end of ROTJ and they don't include anything explaining why this time might be different. I'm not sure why they would throw in vague intimations that Finn is force sensitive without doing anything like that.

The dyad thing doesn't really seem to amount to that much. I love the shot of Ben and Rey facing Palpatine together.... there should have been much more than that. I don't object to killing Ben off but they didn't enough with him before that happened (and the way it happened was also really hackneyed).

In defense of the ultimate ending, I will say this: The argument that the whole saga is pointless because "Palpatine wins" is bizarre. Palpatine's goal wasn't really for his bloodline to survive (except perhaps as a means to an end), it was to rule the galaxy with an iron fist. How TF does he win because his granddaughter survives who opposes everything he stands for? He only ever mentioned "destroying the Skywalker bloodline" in this movie; it was never mentioned before, and I suspect it was more of a tiny item on his checklist rather than his ultimate goal.

All this sudden emphasis on the "Skywalker bloodline" from fans is bizarre. Two generations of them went bad, so maybe it's not such an equivocally good thing for the galaxy?

Oh, and that shot of that massive fleet of ships is a major cocktease. I was actually excited about this movie because I thought we were going the Battle of Endor on steroids, and then... they don't really show it. Why is J.J so adverse to showing actual space battles in STAR WARS? That whole thing is probably the most egregious missed opportunity in the movie. It's utterly baffling. Technology has improved so much since 1983, so why the reluctance to show an epic, large scale battle? It is such a tease. We have massive fleets of good guy ships and massive fleets of star destroyers, and they barely even show them clash. Most of the "money shots" there are in the trailers.

You know what I want to in a Star Wars movie? It's not Chewie getting his medal. It's space battles (or at least "upper atmosphere battles").

Well, that's all I can think of for now.

Here are some comments:

On the topic of lightsabers:

I think this is a Blink Twice and Miss it thing, but -- is her new lightsaber built from the end of her STAFF??? take another look at it if you find a picture of both items. I think it might be. Lol.

Other people having force powers:

Well, I suspect Finn now has force powers, to make up for Rey being a Palpatine. But I think it is very thin and also not worth including unless they would do something substantial with it. There's too much shit in this film like that, just tossed in without any real explanation or fleshing out. In films like this, you have to be expedient -- you cut the stuff you won't explore and meanwhile focus on the stuff that matters.

On Kylo's journey after the Death Star:

I feel like he is Scatman Crothers from Kubrick's "The Shining" -- he makes this freaking huge journey to get back to the emperor to help Rey, even killing the other Knights of Ren... just in time to have his lifeforce sucked out, almost die, stand up, and then get hurled to his death in the void. But... oh wait... let's bring Rey back to life. So let's have him crawl out of the hole somehow, then bring her back to life, so he can fade away. Whatever, man. But you are right -- there was no value added there, he did all that work to simply just show up and be murdered. I consider this bad plotting in terms of building excitement.

Palpatine's victory:

Isn't it because if she kills him, he enters her? It's all kind of vague on what that means, though. he has all the other sith in him. If he enters her, does that mean he is in her body controlling it? or is she still herself, just with every other sith in her and all that power and knowledge? It's kind of dumb, though. Like, who wants to be the Being Emperor Palpatine trapped in a host body? Most evil guys would rather live after sucking everyone ELSE'S life away.

I'm pretty sure I was right on first take, that Palpatine asked Ren to kill Rey -- then failed, so when Rey shows up it is the failsafe plan -- have Rey kill him so he enters her body. But if that MOFO can blast all the Resistance ships out of the sky, then why does he need to let Rey kill him? And then he tries to kill her anyway... and ... oh ffs..

space battles

I don't really care about the space battles as they were here -- just a chaotic mess of people firing wildly. I think I remember liking the Rogue One fight over the gate above Scarif, though -- it was actually visually organized and you could track it. Like, make the fight observable AND interesting AND strategic. This battle here was like the film, it was just visual goulash.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Palpatine's victory:

Isn't it because if she kills him, he enters her? It's all kind of vague on what that means, though. he has all the other sith in him. If he enters her, does that mean he is in her body controlling it? or is she still herself, just with every other sith in her and all that power and knowledge? It's kind of dumb, though. Like, who wants to be the Being Emperor Palpatine trapped in a host body? Most evil guys would rather live after sucking everyone ELSE'S life away.

I'm pretty sure I was right on first take, that Palpatine asked Ren to kill Rey -- then failed, so when Rey shows up it is the failsafe plan -- have Rey kill him so he enters her body. But if that MOFO can blast all the Resistance ships out of the sky, then why does he need to let Rey kill him? And then he tries to kill her anyway... and ... oh ffs..

Palpatine did indeed ask Ren to kill Rey.

I don't think we're supposed to conclude that Palpatine's spirit is in Rey, although why this would be the case, I have no idea. It seemed like a weird thing to bring up all of a sudden. Is it something Sith Masters have always had, or does it have to do with him being resurrected.

 

[ygolo]

Palpatine did indeed ask Ren to kill Rey.

I don't think we're supposed to conclude that Palpatine's spirit is in Rey, although why this would be the case, I have no idea. It seemed like a weird thing to bring up all of a sudden. Is it something Sith Masters have always had, or does it have to do with him being resurrected.

My personal theory is that Rey ended the whole cycle of Jedi vs Sith. She now has both light and dark side in her. That is why her saber is yellow at the end instead of green/blue or red. (It reminds me of the "unaligned" succubus in Lost Girl.) A lot of people were rooting for the rise of "grey Jedi", not the seeking of power at all costs like the Sith, nor the eschewing of all ties to avoid loss, fear, anger, hate, and suffering like the Jedi.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

My personal theory is that Rey ended the whole cycle of Jedi vs Sith. She now has both light and dark side in her. That is why her saber is yellow at the end instead of green/blue or red. (It reminds me of the "unaligned" succubus in Lost Girl.) A lot of people were rooting for the rise of "grey Jedi", not the seeking of power at all costs like the Sith, nor the eschewing of all ties to avoid loss, fear, anger, hate, and suffering like the Jedi.

I'm going to put this out here:

I never really liked the idea of "grey Jedi as it was commonly explained. It seemed like people expecting these movies to become something they never were. I'm not saying the Jedi didn't need reformation, but I don't see that as meaning that they should use the dark side every now and then. The point is that the dark side is addictive and it consumes you if you continue to give into temptation.

Wanting grey Jedi in the sense of "Jedi who use the dark side but aren't villains" is like wanting a dark and gritty Superman.

If one means grey in the sense of being like Qui-Gon Jinn who didn't follow the council or all the dogma that had developed around the Jedi, that's another thing entirely.

 

[ygolo]

If one means grey in the sense of being like Qui-Gon Jinn who didn't follow the council or all the dogma that had developed around the Jedi, that's another thing entirely.

This is the version I prefer.

 

[Totenkindly]

Ended up talking to my son about this for, like a few hours, on Tuesday evening when he came down to stay for a few days (aside from watching parts of Revenge of the Sith and The Last Jedi). He had seen the film over the weekend. Our opinions and observations are pretty similar. Oh well.

I'll be happy once all the articles stop cluttering up my news feeds, I'm tired of hearing people discussing explanations for confusing plot points in an exciting attempt to reconcile them. it's like debating paint chips for your living room while your house is burning down. This film will make a bunch of money, although probably not as much as TFA, and then fade over time, and then like Sandy notes in "Presumed Innocent, "We speak now, tonight, and then these things are never spoken of again" ha ha. Maytbe the next entries in this universe will have nothing whatsoever to do with the Skywalker family, and it hasn't come too soon because it has just resulted in lack of creativity.

I think it's crazy that a number of answers have to be filtered in through the film's Star Wars Encyclopedia book (or whatever it is called) that just came out. You shouldn't have to buy a large supplemental book in order to understand problem areas of a film, it needs to be a self-contained story.


Ian McDiarmid Says George Lucas Wouldn’t Have Brought Palpatine Back from the Dead

Kennedy kinda needs to go, She just obfuscates and doesn't really seem to know how to oversee any of this to lend over-arcing coherency.

I'd be interested in seeing Trevorrow's initial film notes/outline before he got canned. He still got a story credit but I don't know what that means, especially if the Emperor was never part of his plan. (And, like we've all seen, there are no hints of this in TFA really...) I am usually as much as interested in the development process (how ideas formed, how we got to a finished product) as I am about the finished product, especially when it all goes wonky.

 

[The Cat]

I was listening to this video that my eldest sent me, from the "half in the bag" guys, their review of the film. Some of their comments are pretty funny.

I like the way they joked about the barely seen lesbian kiss in the background after the Resistance wins, which is barely a blip in the consciousness and doesn't really count as a landmark of any kind -- one of them called it "passive progressive."

passive progressive, that's pretty hilarious. At least there are enough women in the galaxy far far away now to even have lesbians.

 

[Totenkindly]

Star Wars Screenwriter Claims Kelly Marie Tran's Scenes Were Cut Because of Bad CGI

They claimed that Rose's scenes involved Leia and then the CGI wasn't good enough, so the scenes were cut. (Personally I didn't even like Leia's younger face on Rogue One; Peter Cushing was okay, Leia didn't look right and we didn't need to see her face either.)

But they seem pretty oblivious to how all the decisions they made would be viewed by first-time viewers of the film.

When the actor playing your lead character dies, maybe you'd make a stronger movie by rewriting rather than doing all this half-assed stuff around what little footage you had and depending on CGI? It seems like they refused to really reconsider a lot based on TLJ and other out-of-film events.

I would really like to see the Spec script that Abrams pitched on the day that TLJ released, about his plans for this final film. How much of the final product was in that spec, and what changed?

That explanation may not satisfy some of the critics who think that Abrams and Disney wronged Tran by cutting her role so significantly. But John M. Chu, director of the 2018 hit Crazy Rich Asians, has a solution to make things right. On Friday, he called for Disney to give Rose her own spin-off, à, la The Mandalorian. "Put me in coach," he tweeted. "Let’s make this series happen."

Yeah, I don't think the character is strong enough to helm her whole series unless all the supporting cast is more interesting and Rose is the "normal" one connecting them all.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Gotta appease that Chinese demographic I guess. I don't think Rose was super popular in China, or at least she was blamed for TLJ doing poorly in China. So no surprise they trimmed her scenes. Weak.

If white supremacists were suddenly the majority of moviegoers in the world, Disney wouldn't hesitate to tailor their content to please that demographic. Don't forget that this is a company concerned with pleasing shareholders. Their supposed love for wokeness and diversity only goes as far as their bottom line allows.

 

[Totenkindly]

Well, they aren't hurting for money.

ROS might have underperformed TLJ overall over the time period since its release (and I'm talking in the USA, maybe only about $15 million under TLJ out of a few hundred million), and that's not looking at all the other crap including toys, etc. But the films make so much money that it almost doesn't matter -- it's more about how much it underperforms the paper expectation rather than them ever losing money on SW. The other thing is that it's a market that sells itself -- even if the film is crap, people will still go to see it because it's SW.

The thing is mainly that in terms of draw and money inflow, I think SW is now just performing like a regular franchise, rather than one of the oldest and more venerable. MCU pretty much crowns the franchise world at this time in terms of quality and money flow.

 

[noname3788]

Oh, and that shot of that massive fleet of ships is a major cocktease. I was actually excited about this movie because I thought we were going the Battle of Endor on steroids, and then... they don't really show it. Why is J.J so adverse to showing actual space battles in STAR WARS? That whole thing is probably the most egregious missed opportunity in the movie. It's utterly baffling. Technology has improved so much since 1983, so why the reluctance to show an epic, large scale battle? It is such a tease. We have massive fleets of good guy ships and massive fleets of star destroyers, and they barely even show them clash. Most of the "money shots" there are in the trailers.

Was kinda disappointing for me as well, however I don't expect massive fleet battles anymore in modern SW. They did it just right in episode 3, just show 2*5s closeups of some ships shooting at each other and be done with it, just like this. The whole point of the gigantic resistance fleet was just to show how dark and evil and powerful palpatine was... and seriously last order star destroyers are just a complete joke. The planet killer weapons were such a massive weakpoint for these ships... even the completely idiotic first order constructed better ships, and even these had massive weaknesses.
Also, there was not a single command ship for the rebel fleet... I rewatched the ep6 endor scene on youtube and the rebel fleet had multiple star-destroyer-sized ships, while the probably largest ship of ep9 resistance fleet was the old nebulon frigate... what the actual heck. Going by the logic of the sequel trilogy, the strongest fleet would just be a few thousand copies of the milennium falcon... it would crush anything.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

When the actor playing your lead character dies, maybe you'd make a stronger movie by rewriting rather than doing all this half-assed stuff around what little footage you had and depending on CGI? It seems like they refused to really reconsider a lot based on TLJ and other out-of-film events.

That's crazy talk. Then we might not have enough time to show Chewie finally getting his medal.

 

[Totenkindly]

That's crazy talk. Then we might not have enough time to show Chewie finally getting his medal.

I'm disappointed by that medal. The ribbon wasn't colorful enough. It should have been forged of more expensive metal. And it should have been much bigger because of how long he needed to wait for it. Maybe it should have been a sash! or a headdress!

And it should have been given by Leia's cold dead CGI hand, not a hack like Maz who had no history or role in this story really! Happy compromise: maybe Maz could have handed him a box saying, "This was found in Leia's things, it was addressed to you!"

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Gotta appease that Chinese demographic I guess. I don't think Rose was super popular in China, or at least she was blamed for TLJ doing poorly in China. So no surprise they trimmed her scenes. Weak.

If white supremacists were suddenly the majority of moviegoers in the world, Disney wouldn't hesitate to tailor their content to please that demographic. Don't forget that this is a company concerned with pleasing shareholders. Their supposed love for wokeness and diversity only goes as far as their bottom line allows.

Naw, think the reason they made a lot of choices they did was letting a lot of fanbois practically write the movie.

Certainly explains the retcon about Rey's parents, " A Jedi's weapons deserves more respect", and definitely Rose as well.

They talked all about in pre-release interviews about how this movie was "the opposite of the Last Jedi" and made "for the fans. "

J.J. overcorrected for the prequels in TFA. Why wouldn't he overcorrect for TLJ (which didn't really need correcting, but whatever)? I think JJ puts too much stock in what "the fans" want. The problem is that it's just a vocal subset, and also that their ideas happen to be shit.

It's not the first time. "art deco spaceships don't look like star warzzz, here's some reskinned tie fighters and x wings with different engines;.. oh and we're blowing up the boring politics planet, but don't worry, its not the same one from the prequels"

The China thing makes no sense. IIRC, TFA did poorly in China. China doesn't really care about Star Wars, and I think part of that is that the government can't be super happy with the story and themes of Star Wars.

I wish I could dig it up, but after the movie dropped, someone on reddit (ironically, especially given that I think it was meant as a dig at the movie and other elements of the fanbase) posted a version of the Star Wars end credits saying "written and directed by Reddit." It's not far from the truth.

Frankly, while I didn't hate the movie, I'm glad it's underperforming. I really don't want future Star Wars films to follow this template. There's so much stuff about the creative decisions made with this movie that is lazy and poorly thought-out.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I disagree JJ cares about what fans want. If that were the case, Trek '09 would've been a very different film--he alienated well over half of the Star Trek fanbase with that and Into Darkness. I think JJ recites the "for the fans" schpiel because it sounds a lot better than saying "for the corporate shareholders and suits who can end my career in one phone call if they so see fit."

I think the loudness of fanboys is way overstated, but they're an easy scapegoat to toss out. Whether a franchise film does well or bad, it's a win-win--thank them if a film does well, blame them if it does poorly. It's a lot easier to give credit/blame to some supposedly huge and vocal subset of fans, when in reality they're probably just a few thousand people at most (a tiny fraction of overall ticket buyers) who happen to be pretty vocal on sites like rotten tomatoes and IMDB (before they closed their boards at least)

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I disagree JJ cares about what fans want. If that were the case, Trek '09 would've been a very different film--he alienated well over half of the Star Trek fanbase with that and Into Darkness. I think JJ recites the "for the fans" schpiel because it sounds a lot better than saying "for the corporate shareholders and suits who can end my career in one phone call if they so see fit."

A lot of fans wanted Khan in the sequel, though. I have no idea why. That was always an idea I had zero interest in.