The whole Kylo redemption arc in the movie is unearned. His mom calls out his name and his dad visits him in a vision. That's it. He never atones for anything.
Let me preface this by saying ‘Star Wars’ fuckin’ matters. Does it matter any more or any less than any entertainment that’s ever existed? Your Marvel movies, your Dickens novels, your Shakespeares, your Smiths songs, your ‘Metal Gear Solids’, your ‘Garfield Cummy Racer III: Maximum Cumload’s? No. They all matter, because they shape people. They inspire, they keep people entertained and believing in something on this shithole of a planet we all live on. Every single piece of art ever, if it’s impacted someone, matters.
‘Star Wars’ is directly responsible for inspiring generations of filmmakers and writers, not to mention the general populace. It inspired my own interest in films, working my gold special edition boxset down to a nub, watching and rewatching and rewatching again and again and again, firstly out of enjoyment for the spectacle and then as a more keenly interested observer, who admired the character work, was astounded by the visuals, was enchanted by the practical work. To this day, it’s the best bonding experience I have with my father, who saw the originals as a child; it helps me continue to bond with my older brother, who worked through those VHSs with me; it has been the gateway to watching film for my younger brother, roping him in for screenings of the saga before ‘The Force Awakens’, leading to his own decision to study film at college. ‘Star Wars’ changed the fucking industry - hell, the medium. It matters.
Now that my passive-aggressive intro to give some justification as to why I’m so emotionally invested in a series of movies about a bunch of laser swords and wizards accidentally coming close to boning their sisters is over, let’s get into it. ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ is an abomination on almost every single level. By paying too much surface-level reverence to the originals - the films which inspired J.J. Abrams to take all the wrong fucking messages, a director whose only takeaway was the vapid spectacle - , it so fundamentally gets wrong what ‘Star Wars’ is supposed to be about. In the end, it makes the strongest argument so far that this series should fundamentally not matter; that it should just be a ticking exercise of corporate wants delivered in an utterly soulless manner. It’s the McDonalds of movies - an empty, overstuffed and underwhelming experience. It doesn’t even have the wild and ultimately misguided grandiosity of the prequels. Is it ever as incompetent a film as they are, in regards to its direction, its acting, its pacing? Probably not. Is it worse, for its absolute lack of desire to do anything interesting or challenging or ambitious? I think so. Fuck me, if you had asked if there was a ‘Star Wars’ film I am less interested in rewatching than ‘Attack of the Clones’ a week ago, I’d have laughed in your face.
Abrams’ first sojourn into the saga, ‘The Force Awakens’ makes up for what it lacks in originality by delivering propulsive and engaging action, surrounded by a likeable cast and well-realised (if broad) characters. There’s real strength in the movie’s first half in particular, as Boyega, Ridley, Driver and Isaac all make for truly endearing characters, and while the charm runs thinner on rewatch, it does a good job of capturing the iconography and energy of the originals.
What’s truly unfortunate is Abrams’ desire to completely ignore ‘The Last Jedi’ because… well, because it doesn’t adhere to his ‘mystery box’ style of filmmaking. I am, for lack of a better way of putting it, a fairly big fan of Rian Johnson’s entry into the saga. Truth be told, I think it’s a fucking masterpiece and the best entry into franchise filmmaking since… well, maybe since 1980’s ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. It fundamentally understands the power of ‘Star Wars’ films and its messaging; it’s first and foremost an exploration of character over plot - extraordinarily rare in filmmaking of this scope - with each of its main players growing and developing from failure. It’s It’s a movie of rare, earnest heart, capturing succinctly the lessons ‘Star Wars’ has taught its viewers through the likes of characters old and new - Johnson does an outstanding job of paying deference to the past, never using characters like Yoda and R2 out of cheap nostalgia, but because they make fundamental sense for the story and characters, as well as expanding upon the mythos and loading up a clean slate for its new cast to follow. I’ve seen it maybe six, seven times now, and am still left awed by the power of Driver’s performance, the beauty in Yoda and Luke’s scene, the gorgeous symphonic editing of the battle of Crait and how it majestically ties every character’s journey together in emphatic fashion. For all that ‘The Last Jedi’ has its detractors, I’m at the point now where I just smile and move on; for me, it’s the best in the series, and the best made in the series.
Where ‘The Last Jedi’ kept Rey and Kylo (and to varying degrees, the likes of Luke, Poe and Finn) stuck in a place in order to find themselves, ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ jettisons its characters around the place in order to find… things. A film so fucking lazy that the item they need to ‘find their way’ is literally called the Wayfinder, the first 40 minutes or so are the absolute antithesis of the two films before it; where ‘TFA’ and ‘TLJ’ have some room to breathe, to elaborate on where each character finds themselves, ‘TROS’ jumps straight into plot. In fact, for almost its entire running time, all it is is exposition. Every single thing the Emperor says is so that Abrams and Terrio can hear out loud the ideas they’ve had and trying to clarify the plot make sense (it doesn’t). Why, if his chief purpose is for Rey to strike him down and kill him, does he tell her that’s exactly what he wants? Because the film cannot think of any other way to articulate what is going on. Think about the way Kylo’s behaviour non-verbally hints at his decision to kill Snoke in ‘The Last Jedi’; here, Abrams and Terrio are only interested in explicit exposition, because they’re so impressed with coming up with shit like ‘force dyad’ and ‘all the Sith live in me’ that they didn’t think of the ramifications of it making sense both plot-wise and character-wise. I can’t think of any one thing that truly develops character in the first half alone (not getting to the fact it botches the one true development it does make).
Poe is back to being arrogant flyboy like in ‘TFA’ without having remembered any of the lessons he learned from ‘TLJ’ - and this time he’s unlikeable, too; while one could argue his anti-establishment streak rendered him unlikeable in the previous film, it was all good-natured, spanning from his mistrust of an outsider in lieu of Leia, and the film also goes to great pains to point out he is in the wrong. Here, after spending two films apart from Rey, he goes on to treat her like she owes him something, snapping at her from minute one. He’s constantly bickering with Finn, reluctant to even hold his hand in a moment of triumph (lest anyone believe there’s any credence in the relationship that he and Boyega’s charisma hinted at in ‘TFA’; there’s also allusions to his sexual history with Keri Russell’s pointless Zorii Bliss just so they can make that sure)… this is not the leader that Johnson set up at the end of ‘TLJ’. Finn is far more underserved here than he is in the previous film; while Boyega’s charms proved to be endearing in ‘TFA’, he was an underwritten character with an potentially ripe past that Abrams and Johnson both chose to ignore. What Johnson did do with him was acknowledge Abrams’ choice to move him from self-preservation to Rey-preservation, and then taught him that he can care about a cause bigger than himself and his boner for his new lady friend. The Canto Bight subplot, whatever you think of its execution, is key to this; Finn’s morals are called into question when he begins to see that the binary good-and-evil that ‘Star Wars’ has always had present is not necessarily the truth, and he acknowledges that he has to fight even harder to be a change in the world. Here, he’s genuinely a cipher; a good 75% of his lines are spent asking where Rey is, shouting Rey’s name, telling people to find Rey, dancing round this mystery that he has to tell Rey something before the film ends with him… not doing so; did Abrams and Terrio just forget that they had made numerous references to this and Poe’s inquisitiveness throughout the film, or did they consciously decide to leave it for a spin-off comic? Whether it’s ‘I love you, Rey!’ or, as the film hints towards the end, ‘I’m Force-sensitive, Rey!’, ‘TROS’ has absolutely no interest in answering that question, because its so preoccupied with answering all the other questions that Abrams set up without realising he’d have to answer them.
I knew we were in for a bad time when I saw those first three fuckin’ words. The dead speak. Cool. Head honcho, main villain, big baddie of the entire saga is back, and we don’t know how or when or under what circumstances. Apparently, to hear this message you need to play Fortnite. I cannot think of a single bigger indictment of this movie than the fact a key part of the film is only available in Fortnite; it is more egregious than anything the MCU has ever done. The Emperor’s return in itself is a washout; how did he survive? Dominic Monaghan will give you three possible answers and not elaborate on any of them, so pick your own adventure! There’s tanks full of Snokes; whatever for? Who cares! The Emperor wants Rey to kill him but she won’t and then she does but it doesn’t do anything? Okay!
The film is spectacularly lazy; I can’t even begin to go into the amount of times it shortcuts, or relies on pre-existing understanding of the saga’s imagery or lore to make sense of anything going on. Whether it’s Kylo Ren popping up behind Rey every five seconds like he’s got a lightspeed tracker hidden up her arse (how did he get off Exogol after being excommunicated from the First Order and left behind by Rey? Who cares, we’ll show a TIE Fighter and that’s all we need. Better yet, he plunges into the abyss and comes back twenty seconds later because… well, Palpatine did it too?), or the entire first act being a fetch quest for about six different items, or the fake killing-off of numerous characters, which was unconvincing the first time, or the convenience of Lando being at the festival in exactly the same location as them, or the sheer amount of times TIE fighters turn up after the characters arrive somewhere, or Rey doing shit like igniting her new lightsaber just so the audience can go ‘ooh yellow lightsaber’ despite there being no reason for her to do so, or Kylo seeing Han as a ‘memory’ because that’s the only way they could force Harrison Ford into the film… it’s a genuinely negligent movie when it comes to plotting. Things happen because they happen. Nothing happens because a character forces it into being through their actions and where they need to grow into.
So too, is the movie spiteful in its response to ‘The Last Jedi’. It sidelines Rose Tico and introduces a new character that does nothing Rose couldn’t have, and I think it’s almost horrifically explicit how real-life events had an impact on Abrams’ decision. It’s questionable that the movie casts Naomi Ackie as both potential Finn love interest and relatable character as well as possible Lando daughter based on her race alone (hilarious non-sequiter from Lando setting it up at the end there, because Abrams assumes his audience will put two and two together and say all black people must be related in this film despite Lando not at all hinting at anything to support it), but to ostracise Kelly Marie Tran and make her stare at a computer screen while everyone else is off together, bringing in characters like Jannah solely to ride a horse (despite Rose and Finn riding Fathiers in the previous film) just comes off as pointless for the sake of being so. In fact, almost all of Abrams’ new creations are dramatically inert: new annoying robot that offers nothing of BB-8’s charm; masked wisecracking love interest for Poe that offers literally nothing, new smarmy First Order officer that cannot say anything other than ‘get the navigation working’ or ‘fire the cannon’ or ‘order the teriyaki’. Even the much-vaunted Knights of Ren are absolute jobbers who do nothing, say nothing and get defeated without causing one issue in the entire film.
It chooses to retcon Rey’s parentage issue by muddying the waters entirely; instead of the message being ‘it truly doesn’t matter where you come from, anyone can be a hero’ that ‘TLJ’ suggests, it’s now ‘it doesn’t matter where you came from, even if your heritage is a sordid and evil one… oh but that does suggest there is clearly powerful bloodlines that people do come from and the midichlorian count must be off the charts in this one but that’s okay if you just adopt some other powerful family’s name instead it’s okay’. It’s a change for the sake of change; instead of following clear dramatic and logical paths to follow, Abrams tries to have his cake and eat it, placating fans and offering mega JJ-patented twists. There’s countless spiteful little actions in the film, from Luke’s line to Rey about treating lightsabers with respect, to the inert character regressions of Poe and Finn, and most of all, in the depiction of Kylo Ren.
Now, there’s a school of thought that says ‘Star Wars’ is all about redemption. I don’t think that’s necessarily true: I think it’s all about ‘hope’. It’s the hope that Luke had for his father that drove his character and made him such a hero, and I don’t think we needed Vader’s turn to the light for that to remain true. Needless to say, I don’t think the end of ‘Return of the Jedi’ is much earned, but I can see why it happens (and we at least don’t see Vader kill anyone we truly care about; the closest is blowing up Alderaan, with all its unseen inhabitants, and freezing Han Solo). With Kylo Ren, let’s think of what we’ve seen him do, on-screen:
- ‘The Force Awakens’ begins with him slaughtering an old man and putting a village to death
- He kills his father, who is of course the most popular character in the saga
- He attempts (and comes pretty fuckin’ close) to killing Finn and Rey
- Off-screen, he is given responsibility for burning down the Jedi Temple, slaughtering the fellow padawans, and causing Luke to such despair such is the evil growing inside him to desert
- In ‘The Last Jedi’, he turns on his master, not to save Rey, but to gain more power for himself
- At Crait, he’s fairly desperate for his army to kill the remaining Resistance forces, full of characters we know and love at this point, as well as shoot the Falcon containing Chewbacca and Rey (and a Porg!) out of the sky
- He attempts - numerous times - to kill Luke Skywalker, first by ordering every single gun they have to be fired on him, before attempting to slew him in combat.
This is an evil character, and it is so unbelievably simplistic to imagine he can be redeemed as easily as he is in this film. There’s so many interesting possible avenues they could have taken with his character, but they put the mask back on him and close him off to anything even approaching interesting. Not to mention that Adam Driver, possibly on course to be the best actor of his generation giving the best performance of anyone across all eleven of these movies (give-or-take a Hamill in ‘TLJ’ or Ford in ‘ESB’) and a man that may well win an Oscar in a month’s time, is asked to sell this redemptive arc by not speaking for the last 45 minutes of the fucking movie. I mean it; from the moment he loses sight of his memory of Han, he doesn’t say anything. Not one word to justify his change. Nothing to Palpatine. Nothing to Rey. Now, that’s not to say that he has to talk to be a good character or an effective actor - some of Driver’s best work in the previous two films (I’m thinking specifically when his guns are aimed at Leia or his decision in Snoke’s throne room) have been non-verbal. But seriously? The last third of your final movie and you don’t let the most interesting character talk? And all he does is kiss Rey, despite that door being closed in his face pretty fuckin’ thoroughly in ‘The Last Jedi’. None of the change in their relationship comes because Abrams and Terrio can have Rey or Kylo articulate why or how; it happens because it happens.
So where are the positives? C-3PO gets some good lines. Babu Frik is cute. Ridley and Driver do the best with what they have. Beyond that, I’m struggling. It’s genuinely the most listless, soulless big movie I can think of in a while. I am no big fan of the MCU (understatement of the century), but comparing it to recent efforts: it has less heart than ‘Captain Marvel’, less payoff than ‘Endgame’, less development of character than ‘Ant-Man and the fuckin’ Wasp’. It just does not feel like ‘Star Wars’, and ending your film with a binary sunset will not fool me into thinking so.
TLDR: if you like this movie you deserve farts in your eyes
‘Star Wars’ is directly responsible for inspiring generations of filmmakers and writers, not to mention the general populace. It inspired my own interest in films, working my gold special edition boxset down to a nub, watching and rewatching and rewatching again and again and again, firstly out of enjoyment for the spectacle and then as a more keenly interested observer, who admired the character work, was astounded by the visuals, was enchanted by the practical work. To this day, it’s the best bonding experience I have with my father, who saw the originals as a child; it helps me continue to bond with my older brother, who worked through those VHSs with me; it has been the gateway to watching film for my younger brother, roping him in for screenings of the saga before ‘The Force Awakens’, leading to his own decision to study film at college. ‘Star Wars’ changed the fucking industry - hell, the medium. It matters.
Now that my passive-aggressive intro to give some justification as to why I’m so emotionally invested in a series of movies about a bunch of laser swords and wizards accidentally coming close to boning their sisters is over, let’s get into it. ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ is an abomination on almost every single level. By paying too much surface-level reverence to the originals - the films which inspired J.J. Abrams to take all the wrong fucking messages, a director whose only takeaway was the vapid spectacle - , it so fundamentally gets wrong what ‘Star Wars’ is supposed to be about. In the end, it makes the strongest argument so far that this series should fundamentally not matter; that it should just be a ticking exercise of corporate wants delivered in an utterly soulless manner. It’s the McDonalds of movies - an empty, overstuffed and underwhelming experience. It doesn’t even have the wild and ultimately misguided grandiosity of the prequels. Is it ever as incompetent a film as they are, in regards to its direction, its acting, its pacing? Probably not. Is it worse, for its absolute lack of desire to do anything interesting or challenging or ambitious? I think so. Fuck me, if you had asked if there was a ‘Star Wars’ film I am less interested in rewatching than ‘Attack of the Clones’ a week ago, I’d have laughed in your face.
Abrams’ first sojourn into the saga, ‘The Force Awakens’ makes up for what it lacks in originality by delivering propulsive and engaging action, surrounded by a likeable cast and well-realised (if broad) characters. There’s real strength in the movie’s first half in particular, as Boyega, Ridley, Driver and Isaac all make for truly endearing characters, and while the charm runs thinner on rewatch, it does a good job of capturing the iconography and energy of the originals.
What’s truly unfortunate is Abrams’ desire to completely ignore ‘The Last Jedi’ because… well, because it doesn’t adhere to his ‘mystery box’ style of filmmaking. I am, for lack of a better way of putting it, a fairly big fan of Rian Johnson’s entry into the saga. Truth be told, I think it’s a fucking masterpiece and the best entry into franchise filmmaking since… well, maybe since 1980’s ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. It fundamentally understands the power of ‘Star Wars’ films and its messaging; it’s first and foremost an exploration of character over plot - extraordinarily rare in filmmaking of this scope - with each of its main players growing and developing from failure. It’s It’s a movie of rare, earnest heart, capturing succinctly the lessons ‘Star Wars’ has taught its viewers through the likes of characters old and new - Johnson does an outstanding job of paying deference to the past, never using characters like Yoda and R2 out of cheap nostalgia, but because they make fundamental sense for the story and characters, as well as expanding upon the mythos and loading up a clean slate for its new cast to follow. I’ve seen it maybe six, seven times now, and am still left awed by the power of Driver’s performance, the beauty in Yoda and Luke’s scene, the gorgeous symphonic editing of the battle of Crait and how it majestically ties every character’s journey together in emphatic fashion. For all that ‘The Last Jedi’ has its detractors, I’m at the point now where I just smile and move on; for me, it’s the best in the series, and the best made in the series.
Where ‘The Last Jedi’ kept Rey and Kylo (and to varying degrees, the likes of Luke, Poe and Finn) stuck in a place in order to find themselves, ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ jettisons its characters around the place in order to find… things. A film so fucking lazy that the item they need to ‘find their way’ is literally called the Wayfinder, the first 40 minutes or so are the absolute antithesis of the two films before it; where ‘TFA’ and ‘TLJ’ have some room to breathe, to elaborate on where each character finds themselves, ‘TROS’ jumps straight into plot. In fact, for almost its entire running time, all it is is exposition. Every single thing the Emperor says is so that Abrams and Terrio can hear out loud the ideas they’ve had and trying to clarify the plot make sense (it doesn’t). Why, if his chief purpose is for Rey to strike him down and kill him, does he tell her that’s exactly what he wants? Because the film cannot think of any other way to articulate what is going on. Think about the way Kylo’s behaviour non-verbally hints at his decision to kill Snoke in ‘The Last Jedi’; here, Abrams and Terrio are only interested in explicit exposition, because they’re so impressed with coming up with shit like ‘force dyad’ and ‘all the Sith live in me’ that they didn’t think of the ramifications of it making sense both plot-wise and character-wise. I can’t think of any one thing that truly develops character in the first half alone (not getting to the fact it botches the one true development it does make).
Poe is back to being arrogant flyboy like in ‘TFA’ without having remembered any of the lessons he learned from ‘TLJ’ - and this time he’s unlikeable, too; while one could argue his anti-establishment streak rendered him unlikeable in the previous film, it was all good-natured, spanning from his mistrust of an outsider in lieu of Leia, and the film also goes to great pains to point out he is in the wrong. Here, after spending two films apart from Rey, he goes on to treat her like she owes him something, snapping at her from minute one. He’s constantly bickering with Finn, reluctant to even hold his hand in a moment of triumph (lest anyone believe there’s any credence in the relationship that he and Boyega’s charisma hinted at in ‘TFA’; there’s also allusions to his sexual history with Keri Russell’s pointless Zorii Bliss just so they can make that sure)… this is not the leader that Johnson set up at the end of ‘TLJ’. Finn is far more underserved here than he is in the previous film; while Boyega’s charms proved to be endearing in ‘TFA’, he was an underwritten character with an potentially ripe past that Abrams and Johnson both chose to ignore. What Johnson did do with him was acknowledge Abrams’ choice to move him from self-preservation to Rey-preservation, and then taught him that he can care about a cause bigger than himself and his boner for his new lady friend. The Canto Bight subplot, whatever you think of its execution, is key to this; Finn’s morals are called into question when he begins to see that the binary good-and-evil that ‘Star Wars’ has always had present is not necessarily the truth, and he acknowledges that he has to fight even harder to be a change in the world. Here, he’s genuinely a cipher; a good 75% of his lines are spent asking where Rey is, shouting Rey’s name, telling people to find Rey, dancing round this mystery that he has to tell Rey something before the film ends with him… not doing so; did Abrams and Terrio just forget that they had made numerous references to this and Poe’s inquisitiveness throughout the film, or did they consciously decide to leave it for a spin-off comic? Whether it’s ‘I love you, Rey!’ or, as the film hints towards the end, ‘I’m Force-sensitive, Rey!’, ‘TROS’ has absolutely no interest in answering that question, because its so preoccupied with answering all the other questions that Abrams set up without realising he’d have to answer them.
I knew we were in for a bad time when I saw those first three fuckin’ words. The dead speak. Cool. Head honcho, main villain, big baddie of the entire saga is back, and we don’t know how or when or under what circumstances. Apparently, to hear this message you need to play Fortnite. I cannot think of a single bigger indictment of this movie than the fact a key part of the film is only available in Fortnite; it is more egregious than anything the MCU has ever done. The Emperor’s return in itself is a washout; how did he survive? Dominic Monaghan will give you three possible answers and not elaborate on any of them, so pick your own adventure! There’s tanks full of Snokes; whatever for? Who cares! The Emperor wants Rey to kill him but she won’t and then she does but it doesn’t do anything? Okay!
The film is spectacularly lazy; I can’t even begin to go into the amount of times it shortcuts, or relies on pre-existing understanding of the saga’s imagery or lore to make sense of anything going on. Whether it’s Kylo Ren popping up behind Rey every five seconds like he’s got a lightspeed tracker hidden up her arse (how did he get off Exogol after being excommunicated from the First Order and left behind by Rey? Who cares, we’ll show a TIE Fighter and that’s all we need. Better yet, he plunges into the abyss and comes back twenty seconds later because… well, Palpatine did it too?), or the entire first act being a fetch quest for about six different items, or the fake killing-off of numerous characters, which was unconvincing the first time, or the convenience of Lando being at the festival in exactly the same location as them, or the sheer amount of times TIE fighters turn up after the characters arrive somewhere, or Rey doing shit like igniting her new lightsaber just so the audience can go ‘ooh yellow lightsaber’ despite there being no reason for her to do so, or Kylo seeing Han as a ‘memory’ because that’s the only way they could force Harrison Ford into the film… it’s a genuinely negligent movie when it comes to plotting. Things happen because they happen. Nothing happens because a character forces it into being through their actions and where they need to grow into.
So too, is the movie spiteful in its response to ‘The Last Jedi’. It sidelines Rose Tico and introduces a new character that does nothing Rose couldn’t have, and I think it’s almost horrifically explicit how real-life events had an impact on Abrams’ decision. It’s questionable that the movie casts Naomi Ackie as both potential Finn love interest and relatable character as well as possible Lando daughter based on her race alone (hilarious non-sequiter from Lando setting it up at the end there, because Abrams assumes his audience will put two and two together and say all black people must be related in this film despite Lando not at all hinting at anything to support it), but to ostracise Kelly Marie Tran and make her stare at a computer screen while everyone else is off together, bringing in characters like Jannah solely to ride a horse (despite Rose and Finn riding Fathiers in the previous film) just comes off as pointless for the sake of being so. In fact, almost all of Abrams’ new creations are dramatically inert: new annoying robot that offers nothing of BB-8’s charm; masked wisecracking love interest for Poe that offers literally nothing, new smarmy First Order officer that cannot say anything other than ‘get the navigation working’ or ‘fire the cannon’ or ‘order the teriyaki’. Even the much-vaunted Knights of Ren are absolute jobbers who do nothing, say nothing and get defeated without causing one issue in the entire film.
It chooses to retcon Rey’s parentage issue by muddying the waters entirely; instead of the message being ‘it truly doesn’t matter where you come from, anyone can be a hero’ that ‘TLJ’ suggests, it’s now ‘it doesn’t matter where you came from, even if your heritage is a sordid and evil one… oh but that does suggest there is clearly powerful bloodlines that people do come from and the midichlorian count must be off the charts in this one but that’s okay if you just adopt some other powerful family’s name instead it’s okay’. It’s a change for the sake of change; instead of following clear dramatic and logical paths to follow, Abrams tries to have his cake and eat it, placating fans and offering mega JJ-patented twists. There’s countless spiteful little actions in the film, from Luke’s line to Rey about treating lightsabers with respect, to the inert character regressions of Poe and Finn, and most of all, in the depiction of Kylo Ren.
Now, there’s a school of thought that says ‘Star Wars’ is all about redemption. I don’t think that’s necessarily true: I think it’s all about ‘hope’. It’s the hope that Luke had for his father that drove his character and made him such a hero, and I don’t think we needed Vader’s turn to the light for that to remain true. Needless to say, I don’t think the end of ‘Return of the Jedi’ is much earned, but I can see why it happens (and we at least don’t see Vader kill anyone we truly care about; the closest is blowing up Alderaan, with all its unseen inhabitants, and freezing Han Solo). With Kylo Ren, let’s think of what we’ve seen him do, on-screen:
- ‘The Force Awakens’ begins with him slaughtering an old man and putting a village to death
- He kills his father, who is of course the most popular character in the saga
- He attempts (and comes pretty fuckin’ close) to killing Finn and Rey
- Off-screen, he is given responsibility for burning down the Jedi Temple, slaughtering the fellow padawans, and causing Luke to such despair such is the evil growing inside him to desert
- In ‘The Last Jedi’, he turns on his master, not to save Rey, but to gain more power for himself
- At Crait, he’s fairly desperate for his army to kill the remaining Resistance forces, full of characters we know and love at this point, as well as shoot the Falcon containing Chewbacca and Rey (and a Porg!) out of the sky
- He attempts - numerous times - to kill Luke Skywalker, first by ordering every single gun they have to be fired on him, before attempting to slew him in combat.
This is an evil character, and it is so unbelievably simplistic to imagine he can be redeemed as easily as he is in this film. There’s so many interesting possible avenues they could have taken with his character, but they put the mask back on him and close him off to anything even approaching interesting. Not to mention that Adam Driver, possibly on course to be the best actor of his generation giving the best performance of anyone across all eleven of these movies (give-or-take a Hamill in ‘TLJ’ or Ford in ‘ESB’) and a man that may well win an Oscar in a month’s time, is asked to sell this redemptive arc by not speaking for the last 45 minutes of the fucking movie. I mean it; from the moment he loses sight of his memory of Han, he doesn’t say anything. Not one word to justify his change. Nothing to Palpatine. Nothing to Rey. Now, that’s not to say that he has to talk to be a good character or an effective actor - some of Driver’s best work in the previous two films (I’m thinking specifically when his guns are aimed at Leia or his decision in Snoke’s throne room) have been non-verbal. But seriously? The last third of your final movie and you don’t let the most interesting character talk? And all he does is kiss Rey, despite that door being closed in his face pretty fuckin’ thoroughly in ‘The Last Jedi’. None of the change in their relationship comes because Abrams and Terrio can have Rey or Kylo articulate why or how; it happens because it happens.
So where are the positives? C-3PO gets some good lines. Babu Frik is cute. Ridley and Driver do the best with what they have. Beyond that, I’m struggling. It’s genuinely the most listless, soulless big movie I can think of in a while. I am no big fan of the MCU (understatement of the century), but comparing it to recent efforts: it has less heart than ‘Captain Marvel’, less payoff than ‘Endgame’, less development of character than ‘Ant-Man and the fuckin’ Wasp’. It just does not feel like ‘Star Wars’, and ending your film with a binary sunset will not fool me into thinking so.
TLDR: if you like this movie you deserve farts in your eyes
How about Ben not saying a word after being redeemed?
Anyways it's the most "It's okay" movie of the decade. JJ sucks at storytelling. Always has and always will
Anyways it's the most "It's okay" movie of the decade. JJ sucks at storytelling. Always has and always will
By Apollo Go To PostHow about Ben not saying a word after being redeemed?
Anyways it's the most "It's okay" movie of the decade. JJ sucks at storytelling. Always has and always will
said this my breh
domino - https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/fortnite/2019/12/20/21031513/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-fortnite-opening-crawl-palpatines-message
tldr, but i caught the garf cummy comment and no, it certainly matters a lot less than garfield kart.
By n8 dogg Go To Postsaid this my breh
domino - https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/fortnite/2019/12/20/21031513/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-fortnite-opening-crawl-palpatines-message
...I just don’t even know what to say.
By rodeoclown Go To PostThe whole Kylo redemption arc in the movie is unearned. His mom calls out his name and his dad visits him in a vision. That's it. He never atones for anything.not to mention kylo killed his dad and was gonna kill his mom the past movie
they spent 2 movies screaming "yes, kylo may have some good but he's beyond redemption" only to abandon it
By Freewheelin Go To PostYeah Kylo should not have been redeemed.I mean not because of but because he injected all of his life force into her.
lol at him dying because of Rey's kiss btw
I half expected for the movie to end with Rey pregnant from Ben's "healing", which is how she actually became a Skywalker 😂
By reilo Go To PostI mean not because of but because he injected all of his life force into her.
I half expected for the movie to end with Rey pregnant from Ben's "healing", which is how she actually became a Skywalker 😂
Oh yeah I must have forgotten that somehow. It was so predictable
Also, I hated sheev in this film, his inclusion made no sense whatsoever and his powers were absolutely ridiculous lmao, similar to the prequels
i wouldnt say its okay just because it is vaguely competent, like the level fails at picking up everything that the last jedi tried to set up from a character point of view, while making everything just another bad retelling of a story we've heard before
the jj special, just make everything as dumb and recognizable as possible so people dont question things
the jj special, just make everything as dumb and recognizable as possible so people dont question things
This movie only gets worse the more I think on it. Not sure what its redeeming quality is. Even the action isn't worth revisiting.
By Xpike Go To Postwill we talk about how Rey apparently fell in love with the man who threatened to kill her and her friends multiple, repeated times, all while hurling abuse and trying to make her feel like a nobodyor is that not problematic enoughHe's white tho
JJ "Don't Imply Miscegenation" Abrams
The dagger thing was so stupid. So many things had to go right for it to work.
The person holding it had to be on the right side, a partially destroyed Death Star had to stay as it was despite being in the middle of huge waves every day for decades.
Was the dagger made pre or post Return Of The Jedi?
The person holding it had to be on the right side, a partially destroyed Death Star had to stay as it was despite being in the middle of huge waves every day for decades.
Was the dagger made pre or post Return Of The Jedi?
By Punished Go To PostLast line of the film was wackIt really was, would have been better if it was ”Just Rey”, cut to credits
By Facism Go To PostGood review Dean.Cheers m8
The dagger and wayfinder (wow cool name) was JJ definitely having a hardon for another Harrison Ford character, because again, he's creatively bankrupt.
Also, Force healing to revive a character? Abrams did that shit in Star Trek: Into Darkness after Captain Kirk died by using some hedgehog blood. He loves to kill major characters off only to revive them a second later.
Also, Force healing to revive a character? Abrams did that shit in Star Trek: Into Darkness after Captain Kirk died by using some hedgehog blood. He loves to kill major characters off only to revive them a second later.
Also, there's two leads of color in this movie:
- One is a former Stormtrooper
- One is a former drug smuggler
They used the latter reveal to make a joke of the former.
The two "heroes" of this story are both white people from prominent lineage. JJ really stuck in the past.
- One is a former Stormtrooper
- One is a former drug smuggler
They used the latter reveal to make a joke of the former.
The two "heroes" of this story are both white people from prominent lineage. JJ really stuck in the past.
According to the comics, Kylo didn't actually kill anyone at the temple, it was Palpatine who exploded it with some lightning.
Also, the Knights Of Ren are a bunch of killers who have some weak Force powers (they call it the Shadow) and they are obsessed with Ten, which is what they call the lightsabers.
This keeps getting more and more stupid.
Also, the Knights Of Ren are a bunch of killers who have some weak Force powers (they call it the Shadow) and they are obsessed with Ten, which is what they call the lightsabers.
This keeps getting more and more stupid.
Also, ROTS is completely underwhelming from a visual perspective. It's flashy, but the cinematography is clearly a step down from TLJ, which was just a gorgeous movie through and through:
ROTS looks closer to an Avengers movie than anything.
ROTS looks closer to an Avengers movie than anything.
By /sy Go To Postwell i know what i'm doing for the next 70 minutes
By reilo Go To PostAlso, ROTS is completely underwhelming from a visual perspective. It's flashy, but the cinematography is clearly a step down from TLJ, which was just a gorgeous movie through and through:TLJ played around with cinematography, pacing, something that no Star Wars movie really had.
ROTS looks closer to an Avengers movie than anything.
It seemed like the series was stuck in the 70s before it. There was a visual language that JJ Abrams, Kasdan and Lucas adhered to.
lucas was using star wipes in 2003
also that rlm review sums it up at the end "if you actually liked tros, you may have low iq". My favorite part is them slowly caring less and less thr most they talk about the plot because they keep uncovering plotholes
also that rlm review sums it up at the end "if you actually liked tros, you may have low iq". My favorite part is them slowly caring less and less thr most they talk about the plot because they keep uncovering plotholes
By Flutter Go To PostTLJ played around with cinematography, pacing, something that no Star Wars movie really had.Well, unfortunately, JJ brought the the series to the 2010s and now it looks closer to a MCU production than before.
It seemed like the series was stuck in the 70s before it. There was a visual language that JJ Abrams, Kasdan and Lucas adhered to.
By /sy Go To PostEhhh
"You killed Snoke, you either bring in a new Sith Lord, or bring back Palpatine, it's the smart choice."
Or, you know, Kylo Ren was already Supreme Leader and you could've made him the villain like he's been thus far. This whole, "villain behind the villain" trope is just so zzzzz. Again, just a lack of creativity.
"Which one do you like better, TLJ or this?"
"This"
And that's my cue to stop watching.
By reilo Go To PostEhhhyou can tell they recorded this immediately after watching, they get more and more dispairing the longer it goes on
"You killed Snoke, you either bring in a new Sith Lord, or bring back Palpatine, it's the smart choice."
Or, you know, Kylo Ren was already Supreme Leader and you could've made him the villain like he's been thus far. This whole, "villain behind the villain" trope is just so zzzzz. Again, just a lack of creativity.
"Which one do you like better, TLJ or this?"
"This"
And that's my cue to stop watching.
By sohois Go To Postyou can tell they recorded this immediately after watching, they get more and more dispairing the longer it goes onThey still blame Rian for ROTS plot problems. A good writer takes the foundation Rian setup and does something even better with it, but JJ is not that guy.
By reilo Go To PostEhhhbut kylo sucks
"You killed Snoke, you either bring in a new Sith Lord, or bring back Palpatine, it's the smart choice."
Or, you know, Kylo Ren was already Supreme Leader and you could've made him the villain like he's been thus far. This whole, "villain behind the villain" trope is just so zzzzz. Again, just a lack of creativity.
"Which one do you like better, TLJ or this?"
"This"
And that's my cue to stop watching.
palpatine sucks more i guess
Kylo is legit the only consistently good thing in this trilogy. They already had him go full bad guy in the first two, might as well play off of that the first hour or so and then try to redeem him. Instead he was written into another errand-boy role from the first movie.
they are solidly in the "tlj is better than tros" camp by the end
n8s review is slowly becoming a meme in era
n8s review is slowly becoming a meme in era
By Xpike Go To Postthey are solidly in the "tlj is better than tros" camp by the end
n8s review is slowly becoming a meme in era
What do you mean
Jay says at the end that he definitively liked The Last Jedi better than this one and Mike kinda acquiesced.
It was enjoyable to see their descent into madness and despair in real time
It was enjoyable to see their descent into madness and despair in real time
Just saw Star Wars lads. Still reading the beautiful n8ssay and your posts. Don't think I have much more to add to the discussion, but I'll at least post my thoughts for posterity in a bit. Gotta eat something first.
So, that was something. I gotta say I laughed out loud several times during the movie. If there were any other people in the theater besides us we might've been kicked out. Biggest laugh was definitely when one character, think it was Poe, said: He calls it... THE FINAL ORDER dun dun dun. Haven't laughed this much at a SW film since: "So love has blinded you?" and "I hate sand".
It was expected, but also shocking. Said in the other thread that at least it's a bit more watchable than Into Darkness which is an awful, terribly written movie that just throws away the little goodwill they earned with ST09, even though it wasn't actually Star Trek. But it suffers so much from the same ailments, primarily being more interested in taking you to the next scene than, I don't know, developing characters? establishing mood? let the audience take in the scenery? anything? This movie is straight up a bad videogame, except worse because in videogames you can pause, read the quest log, or shoot/kill something.
Everything happens just so the characters keep walking forward, dangling an item or "look for thing" objective in front of them at all times. Main and side characters alike are only there to explain the plot, to tell you how to get from B to C to D, or to give you items for your inventory or power ups so you can open a door or learn how to defeat the next boss. Now you get this dagger, now you learn heal, talk to this character to get the coin to access the ship, now that character is gone forever, here is where you use mind trick but it only works in this area... wait, why are we in this area again? Oh, cutscene explaining bad guy motivation. OK.
The repudiation of all things TLJ was expected but not even subtle or smart. I don't like TLJ but it was beyond mean spirited when you put out such an inferior product as a response. I'm also starting to think JJ is a secret homophobe. On Star Trek, I thought it was done because Kurtzman and Orci are hacks, but then it happens again in this movie. Here, side characters are introduced only (barely) to give the leads a potential straight romance out. God forbid two characters with good chemistry might develop a friendship and people think they are gay or something. Of course you even have to hint that the minority girl likes the minority lead. You have to go there, because we can't have fanboy Finn friendzoned without a win. God, JJ even made Poe annoying as fuck when you have the most charming guy playing him. His whole tussle with Holdo was ill-conceived and groan wirthy, but at least it had a point to the story and his development as a character. Felicity is in this movie just as an excuse to point out Poe was a loose cannon (wow, who knew), and also previously involved with a girl, so NOT GAY!
That's not even getting into the main roles. And this is something that kinda hurts because I thought, wow, they introduced a whiny, awkward villain that throws tantrums and is an irredeemable fuckwad, but also has an interesting dynamic and connection to this confused, doe eyed, spirited main hero. I actually want to see them learn and grow and face off, and have this weird chemistry with scenes like the interrogation in TFA or the long distance force calls in TLJ. But nope. Can't do anything creative at all to show their acting chops, or take the story to strange new places. Nope, let's just very badly redeem the irredeemable fuck, fold the girl into the family name because she can't be her own person, she has to follow the predetermined path laid out before her because the Star Wars limited universe demands it, and end it all in a kiss because that's what heroes do.
Fuck me. Star Wars is dead. Again.
It was expected, but also shocking. Said in the other thread that at least it's a bit more watchable than Into Darkness which is an awful, terribly written movie that just throws away the little goodwill they earned with ST09, even though it wasn't actually Star Trek. But it suffers so much from the same ailments, primarily being more interested in taking you to the next scene than, I don't know, developing characters? establishing mood? let the audience take in the scenery? anything? This movie is straight up a bad videogame, except worse because in videogames you can pause, read the quest log, or shoot/kill something.
Everything happens just so the characters keep walking forward, dangling an item or "look for thing" objective in front of them at all times. Main and side characters alike are only there to explain the plot, to tell you how to get from B to C to D, or to give you items for your inventory or power ups so you can open a door or learn how to defeat the next boss. Now you get this dagger, now you learn heal, talk to this character to get the coin to access the ship, now that character is gone forever, here is where you use mind trick but it only works in this area... wait, why are we in this area again? Oh, cutscene explaining bad guy motivation. OK.
The repudiation of all things TLJ was expected but not even subtle or smart. I don't like TLJ but it was beyond mean spirited when you put out such an inferior product as a response. I'm also starting to think JJ is a secret homophobe. On Star Trek, I thought it was done because Kurtzman and Orci are hacks, but then it happens again in this movie. Here, side characters are introduced only (barely) to give the leads a potential straight romance out. God forbid two characters with good chemistry might develop a friendship and people think they are gay or something. Of course you even have to hint that the minority girl likes the minority lead. You have to go there, because we can't have fanboy Finn friendzoned without a win. God, JJ even made Poe annoying as fuck when you have the most charming guy playing him. His whole tussle with Holdo was ill-conceived and groan wirthy, but at least it had a point to the story and his development as a character. Felicity is in this movie just as an excuse to point out Poe was a loose cannon (wow, who knew), and also previously involved with a girl, so NOT GAY!
That's not even getting into the main roles. And this is something that kinda hurts because I thought, wow, they introduced a whiny, awkward villain that throws tantrums and is an irredeemable fuckwad, but also has an interesting dynamic and connection to this confused, doe eyed, spirited main hero. I actually want to see them learn and grow and face off, and have this weird chemistry with scenes like the interrogation in TFA or the long distance force calls in TLJ. But nope. Can't do anything creative at all to show their acting chops, or take the story to strange new places. Nope, let's just very badly redeem the irredeemable fuck, fold the girl into the family name because she can't be her own person, she has to follow the predetermined path laid out before her because the Star Wars limited universe demands it, and end it all in a kiss because that's what heroes do.
Fuck me. Star Wars is dead. Again.
JJ & Disney were smart to bring back the Ewoks for that split second.
Now they can put those unsold models back on the shelf in time for Christmas.
Now they can put those unsold models back on the shelf in time for Christmas.
Saw a very apt statement on Twitter earlier. Abrams was so afraid of making a bad movie that he forgot to make a good one.