The Rise of Skywalker General Star Wars Episode IX News/Speculation Thread - Part 1

[jmc]

Christianity is fine with me. Fundamentalism isn't.

And having Rey alone, virginal and choosing a nun like existence is fundamental, whichever way you look at it.

I understand that view but there's no way that was intentional on the part of the films. The problem from the beginning was Rey was given no personality or any values, which frankly has come about because those writing films in Hollywood are at this point in time writing female characters as blank slates under the misguided idea that makes her stronger. Having female leads is not an issue, but if she has no female perspective, aspirations, desires or just any feminine aspects about her, then she's not really a character. You look at someone like Wonder Woman who was the epitome of femininity and all its strength, you've got a compassionate, romantic, beautiful and elegant goddess who also kicks arse in 6 inch heels.

Switch to Star Wars and you've got Rey who has been given no real personality, no real goals or values, who's been dressed in a bland and unfeminine way, and who's not been allowed to find love. Oh, but here's some badass piloting and sword skills to make up for it. The best women heroes have all come from a woman's perspective in their quest, Leia, Ripley, Sarah Conner, Katniss Everdeen, The Bride, Eowyn, Furiosa, Wonder Woman, bad place I'd say even Padme and Jyn Erso could be included, the list goes on. That view you have is a result of creative minds who think in order for women heroes to have power they have to act in any way other than what a woman would. And frankly no-one wants to watch that.

 

[Fincher]

Rey had a personality in The Force Awakens, it just wasn't a feminine one. She was an uncouth "street urchin" as a result of growing up on her own in an unforgiving environment. If they'd stuck with and built on that instead of trying to fit her into a Bella Swan role (to start with), it would have worked fine for me. Have her reject Jedi training. Have her wrinkle her nose at dressing up for a Resistance celebration. Not every female protagonist needs to be some sort of ideal for girls/women, just like not every male protagonist needs to be an ideal for boys/men. It's okay to have a Frodo Baggins who's just doing his own thing.

 

[henzINNIT]

Exactly. I thought TROSA would see Rey and Kylo create a new Jedi system between them. If Kylo was right in one instant it was that the Jedi and With needed to die out. Whenever an extreme group ascended, so would their opposite and the fighting would continue.
Instead they gave it all to Rey - and despite warbling about her being 'the balance' she's very obviously an old style Jedi, complete with white virginal costume. In the future, another Darksider will rise, and it'll start all over again. They've gone backwards rather than forwards.
So much for 'the resolving of grey'.

I think it was a huge mistake not to tackle the failings of the Jedi. It's the supposed end to a 42 year story of balance and overcoming darkness. Rey didn't have to burn it all down, but some progression would have been much appreciated.

My guess is JJ/Disney were deeply afraid of the potential backlash if they were perceived as 'messing' with Jedi lore, and I can't say they'd be wrong either. Or maybe they just weren't thinking that deeply.

 

[BatLobster]

I think it's just not exactly something that's easy to tackle cinematically in a family film. The DOTF script struggled mightily with it, with awkward lines of exposition including Rey just proclaiming that she's the light and the dark...whatever that means. Like, how do you depict someone establishing a new religion and laying down what the new "rules" are, in a way that actually that works? Was Rey supposed to grab a stone tablet and read out the new Jedi commandments? Do we end with a new Jedi Council throwing out ideas for new rules, ala the ending of GOT?

I'm being facetious, but trying to draw attention to the inherent problem there. It would be one thing if the sequel trilogy was designed to be a complex, more adult-oriented story that took a deep dive into the lore and was trying to have a deep discussion about religion. Maybe that's where George wanted to go with it. But under Disney the trilogy was set up to be more of a return to the style of the OT-- meaning more action and adventure, a lot less standing around and speaking in lore exposition. For better or worse.

I think Rian did a great job finding a balance there and injecting a touch of complexity and challenging themes into his film, but even he still brought things back around to a classic good vs. evil conflict, with Luke fully reaffirming his belief in the Jedi by the end. And if we're using the colors they used to decode the ending of TROS-- then surely the golden/yellow lightsaber is at least signifying the dawning of a new age, a unique color we've never seen before, signaling a new type of Jedi. To me that carries more weight than her wearing white as some sort of code for "virginal". I mean Leia wore plenty of white in the OT-- and she was flirty as heck with both Han and Luke for 2 films, then went onto mother Han's child. So explain that one.

One thing we do get from the new trilogy is that it seems that Luke's New Jedi were completely separate from the New Republic. A big part of the downfall in the Jedi in the prequels were that they had become too political, as Dave Filoni recently talked about. I'd imagine Rey will continue what Luke was trying to do and keep the Jedi a separate entity from government. Something more pure and incorruptible, since governments will inevitably go bad.

 

[Donner]

Leia wore white when she was young and a virgin. Notice she didn't wear any white in the ST until that god-awful shot of her and Luke at the end of TROS.

It's the one thing I liked about Duel of the Fates is that Rey wore black.

You know how easy it would have been to establish that Rey built a new Jedi Order? Keeping Ben Solo alive and showing that they would build a new one together. It would establish that the new Order would allow love and marriage and be more "grey".

It's the whole ending with the cherry on top of Rey's clothing that make it awful. Her return to a childlike nature (sledding down the sand dune), her hair up in buns again (while in TLJ she had it down), her all white clothing, her seeing the twincest of Luke and Leia as surrogate parents, etc. Women can have lovers and still be strong. They can have children and still kick ash. The pureness of Rey's state at the end of TROS is insulting to me.

 

[BatLobster]

I'm all for Rey finding love at some point in the future, and I don't think the ending does anything to rule that out-- but doesn't she deserve someone better than Ben Solo anyway? Doesn't it send a bit of a weird message if the story is "give that toxic, abusive and manipulative boyfriend another chance, cause he's a good guy deep down and he comes from a good family." And also, "You can be a rotten, genocidal, patricidal maniac, but still enjoy a no-strings attached redemption where you get to rebuild the future according to your own ideals, with the girl of your dreams by your side. It gets a bit gross no matter how you look at it.

Any sort of full-on happy ending for Reylo would've reeked of a tacky Young Adult novel. For all the talk about how JJ and Rian weren't on the same page, that is one thing I feel confident saying was never in the cards with either of their visions. I saw TROS in theaters multiple times, the audience always groaned/laughed at the kiss. That was pushing it for a lot of people as is.

 

[Donner]

I'm not going to get into the Reylo shipping because I've already made it very clear how I see people who judge that ship as if they're the Purity Police.

The lore set up Ben as Rey's soulmate and then killed him off. She would always feel like a part of her was missing (as stated in the canon of Force Bonds). That's my opinion of it.

 

[BatLobster]

If someone is genuinely into the ship, I'm not going to judge-- you're entitled to that. But there's a flip side to that. When you invest so much into one specific outcome and have an expectation that the movie gives you exactly what you personally want, it's falling into that same trap of walking into one of these films with any sort of fanfiction in your head. It's playing with fire. It's one of the reasons I appreciated TLJ. Because I had so many preconceived notions going in, and it totally flipped the script on me to the point that I stopped trying to get ahead of the story and just went on the ride- which is the best feeling for me when watching a film.

Regardless of how one feels about the ship-- the bigger question though, is there something inherently wrong with the ending having an element of sadness/tragedy to it? There is a lot of tragedy woven into the story of Star Wars. Anakin's last moments with Luke are painful. All that regret. Finally getting to look on Luke with his own eyes, and then dying a weak and pathetic shell of a man. Luke still had hope that he could save him. It was always tremendously sad to me as a kid regardless of his blue glowie popping up at the end. The tragic weight of that moment stands.

Also, being that Ben resurrected her by giving all of his life force, one could say a part of him is always with her now. In the novel, she even hears him say "I will always be with you" as she's leaving Exogol.

 

[Donner]

I don't agree. The Skywalker Saga was full of tragedy and it shouldn't have ended with all of their deaths and Rey taking up the name as if that fixes it. George Lucas likes happy endings and so do I, Endgame aside because it was beautifully made and the deaths made sense, even if they were heartbreaking.

And I'm not inserting my own fanfiction headcanon into the story. I just took what Rian did and what the supplementary materials portrayed and came to a logical conclusion, shared by many others. It's not exactly farfetched to have expected an actual Skywalker to continue the line.

 

[BatLobster]

Again though, it's not as ROTJ ends with Luke and dad playing catch. Anakin still dies before his son, and it's a really sad moment.

That said, I still do think ROTJ is a better ending for the saga than the ST as a whole. But as Orson Welles said, "If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story."

I don't think there was ever any driving necessity for the ST to exist, and that is something I think they struggled with throughout. But I also wasn't surprised that things went in more of a bittersweet direction, considering that the jumping off point for this trilogy was everything going to bad place after the events of the greatest trilogy of all time about good overcoming evil. So...yeah. The very existence of the ST is a deconstruction of the fairy tale ending of the OT.

I do think there's something rather nice about the Skywalker name becoming something of a mantle. I think even if you're not happy with where Rey ended up, there's something rather grand about the idea that the name of the central family of the saga ultimately transcending bloodline and became immortal in a sense. And I like that ending the bloodline does help definitively close the book on the saga. You end with Rey and Ben together, you directly setup the next generation of Skywalker and it's the biggest setup for Episode X ever. That's a big fat no thanks from me. Let's move on and tell new stories in this universe.

 

[Donner]

Anakin got to live a life. He was married and had children and experienced happiness. His death at an old age was less tragic and more necessity, at least to me. Ending the Skywalker line as Palpatine essentially wanted and ending it with a 30 year old who never experienced love or happiness isn't just tragic, it sends a poor message in my opinion. I don't think having an ending where Rey and Ben start a new Order would set up Episode X. I think it would wrap up the series in a positive way, with a message of hope and not an overly nostalgic throwback to another movie.

The ending ignored Rey. It was about the twins! and Tattooine (which Luke, Leia, and Anakin all hated), and the sunsets. Rey was just a tool for JJ to make the ending about who he thought was really important (the fanboys) and that sucks.

 

[Sian]

Anakin was also more dead than alive. His death freed him from his ruined body. The manner of it redeemed him to find peace and be reunited with Padme.
Ben Solo died a young man. The message was if you're abused and brainwashed, you can't atone for your actions unless you kill yourself.
Most repugnant of all - the tie in novel makes it plain Ben thought himself worthless , and that all he was good for was being Rey's organ donor.

So he could 'give her back to the galaxy'.
Lord, the 'Rey is the goddess we must all sacrifice for'.....is nauseating.

 

[Marvolo]

Anakin got to live a life. He was married and had children and experienced happiness. His death at an old age was less tragic and more necessity, at least to me. Ending the Skywalker line as Palpatine essentially wanted and ending it with a 30 year old who never experienced love or happiness isn't just tragic, it sends a poor message in my opinion. I don't think having an ending where Rey and Ben start a new Order would set up Episode X. I think it would wrap up the series in a positive way, with a message of hope and not an overly nostalgic throwback to another movie.

The ending ignored Rey. It was about the twins! and Tattooine (which Luke, Leia, and Anakin all hated), and the sunsets. Rey was just a tool for JJ to make the ending about who he thought was really important (the fanboys) and that sucks.

I can't believe you're actually trying to say Anakin had it better than Rey. Lets see.

Spent the first 9 years of his life as a slave.

Spent 10 years, his teenage years, as a child warrior monk and was forbidden romantic relationships.

His mother was tortured to death and died in his arms.

He had a psychological break and committed mass murder.

He had to marry in secret and had to hide his marriage like it was a dirty secret. Tearing him between his wife and the Order.

He had to fight in a war for 3 years which kept him away from his wife for long stretches.

He attacked his wife and spends 2 decades thinking he murdered her and his children.

He was manipulated by the devil for 40+ years.

He lost all four limbs and was burned alive and had to live in a life support suit in constant pain.

He became a mass murdering monster.

He betrayed and butchered the Jedi Order.

He spent 20+ years of his life in continual anger and resentment without any positive emotions.

He tried to murder Ahsoka.

He murdered children and enslaved entire species.

He repeatedly tried to murder his children.

He dies 5 minutes after turning to the light and never gets to spend time with his daughter.

But poor poor Rey might not have children. Truly awful.

 

[Donner]

I can't believe you're actually trying to say Anakin had it better than Rey. Lets see.

Spent the first 9 years of his life as a slave.

Spent 10 years, his teenage years, as a child warrior monk and was forbidden romantic relationships.

His mother was tortured to death and died in his arms.

He had a psychological break and committed mass murder.

He had to marry in secret and had to hide his marriage like it was a dirty secret. Tearing him between his wife and the Order.

He had to fight in a war for 3 years which kept him away from his wife for long stretches.

He attacked his wife and spends 2 decades thinking he murdered her and his children.

He was manipulated by the devil for 40+ years.

He lost all four limbs and was burned alive and had to live in a life support suit in constant pain.

He became a mass murdering monster.

He betrayed and butchered the Jedi Order.

He spent 20+ years of his life in continual anger and resentment without any positive emotions.

He tried to murder Ahsoka.

He murdered children and enslaved entire species.

He repeatedly tried to murder his children.

He dies 5 minutes after turning to the light and never gets to spend time with his daughter.

But poor poor Rey might not have children. Truly awful.

I never said Anakin had a better life than Rey. You misread my post.

 

[henzINNIT]

I think it's just not exactly something that's easy to tackle cinematically in a family film.

I disagree quite a lot. Here's two off the top of my head:

1) Kylo - Delve into why he turned. Our main antagonist is a fallen Jedi: a walking, talking, antagonizing embodiment of the failings of the Jedi ways. TLJ gave us motivation for Kylo in his desire to destroy the past and the institutions of both good and evil. If you follow through on this, you will naturally come into conflict with Rey, where Kylo can argue against the Jedi religion and actually be right on some issues. Rey would ultimately recognize the dangers of dogma and carve a new path forward based on the shared knowledge of Jedi past.

2) Luke - How about Luke had someone he loved. This woman wanted a real relationship with Luke but he rejected her in favour of his religion and she left. The loss hurt him more than he could meditate away, and perhaps had an impact on his behavior with Kylo. This directly ties the Jedi code into the conflict of the ST in a way that 'rhymes' with the PT, and you can also do a "Rey Skywalker" retcon with this as well if needed.

I don't think it's that lofty an idea really. Good Star Wars to me has some fun things to chew on. bad place, I think the prequels suck, but they still had ideas.

The DOTF script struggled mightily with it, with awkward lines of exposition including Rey just proclaiming that she's the light and the dark...whatever that means. Like, how do you depict someone establishing a new religion and laying down what the new "rules" are, in a way that actually that works? Was Rey supposed to grab a stone tablet and read out the new Jedi commandments? Do we end with a new Jedi Council throwing out ideas for new rules, ala the ending of GOT?

I'm being facetious, but trying to draw attention to the inherent problem there. It would be one thing if the sequel trilogy was designed to be a complex, more adult-oriented story that took a deep dive into the lore and was trying to have a deep discussion about religion. Maybe that's where George wanted to go with it. But under Disney the trilogy was set up to be more of a return to the style of the OT-- meaning more action and adventure, a lot less standing around and speaking in lore exposition. For better or worse.

Trevorrow dialogue is subtle as a brick but the broad strokes of his approach work for me. He certainly got closer to being about something than JJ did, I'd say.

I think Rian did a great job finding a balance there and injecting a touch of complexity and challenging themes into his film, but even he still brought things back around to a classic good vs. evil conflict, with Luke fully reaffirming his belief in the Jedi by the end. And if we're using the colors they used to decode the ending of TROS-- then surely the golden/yellow lightsaber is at least signifying the dawning of a new age, a unique color we've never seen before, signaling a new type of Jedi. To me that carries more weight than her wearing white as some sort of code for "virginal". I mean Leia wore plenty of white in the OT-- and she was flirty as heck with both Han and Luke for 2 films, then went onto mother Han's child. So explain that one.

One thing we do get from the new trilogy is that it seems that Luke's New Jedi were completely separate from the New Republic. A big part of the downfall in the Jedi in the prequels were that they had become too political, as Dave Filoni recently talked about. I'd imagine Rey will continue what Luke was trying to do and keep the Jedi a separate entity from government. Something more pure and incorruptible, since governments will inevitably go bad.

Agreed on Johnson finding a good balance. I'm just sore that I couldn't enjoy 9 for long after I've become attached to these characters.

The gold saber is a good point. I don't like it though, for purely subjective reasons ha.

I don't really get the 'virginal' thing with white. I've always thought the colour coding of the series was mostly just light/good and dark/bad for the most part *shrugs*

 

[henzINNIT]

I can't believe you're actually trying to say Anakin had it better than Rey. Lets see.

Spent the first 9 years of his life as a slave.

Spent 10 years, his teenage years, as a child warrior monk and was forbidden romantic relationships.

His mother was tortured to death and died in his arms.

He had a psychological break and committed mass murder.

He had to marry in secret and had to hide his marriage like it was a dirty secret. Tearing him between his wife and the Order.

He had to fight in a war for 3 years which kept him away from his wife for long stretches.

He attacked his wife and spends 2 decades thinking he murdered her and his children.

He was manipulated by the devil for 40+ years.

He lost all four limbs and was burned alive and had to live in a life support suit in constant pain.

He became a mass murdering monster.

He betrayed and butchered the Jedi Order.

He spent 20+ years of his life in continual anger and resentment without any positive emotions.

He tried to murder Ahsoka.

He murdered children and enslaved entire species.

He repeatedly tried to murder his children.

He dies 5 minutes after turning to the light and never gets to spend time with his daughter.

But poor poor Rey might not have children. Truly awful.

Actually, I think relative to age Rey has had a much worse time than Anakin. She's what? 18-20? She's about where Anakin was in Episode 2, and has been through quite a lot.

Anakin spent 10 years as a slave... but his boss seemed alright, he built droids and pod-racers in his free time, and even entered several races. And of course he lived with and was raised by a loving mother.
Rey spent longer in worse circumstances, completely alone, scavenging for scrap to exchange for food and living in a wrecked AT-AT.

Your list of Anakin's hardships also doesn't account for the repercussions of his own destructive behaviour. He was born a slave, raised a Jedi, but he was already an adult in Episode 2 and accountable for his own actions. The struggles Rey experienced came about despite largely doing the 'right' thing all the time.

It's interesting viewing Anakin as a victim of indoctrination. The Jedi way in the PT seems mightily flawed, and considering our heroes are mostly Jedi I'm not sure how much Lucas intended. One thing to note though: Anakin doesn't save his mother. He experiences traumatic dreams for a while, and eventually is too late to save her. His son is different. In a similar situation, Luke has a vision of his friends in danger and leaves immediately to help them. Naturally, the Jedi characters are against helping good people in need, ha

 

[DarkKnight88]

It's interesting viewing Anakin as a victim of indoctrination. The Jedi way in the PT seems mightily flawed, and considering our heroes are mostly Jedi I'm not sure how much Lucas intended. One thing to note though: Anakin doesn't save his mother. He experiences traumatic dreams for a while, and eventually is too late to save her. His son is different. In a similar situation, Luke has a vision of his friends in danger and leaves immediately to help them. Naturally, the Jedi characters are against helping good people in need, ha

This. Dave Filoni said as much in those Mandalorian BTS. He needed Qui-Gon as a father figure in his life to show him compassion and love. When Qui-Gon died, none of the other Jedi including Obi-Wan could give that to him. If Qui-Gon had lived, Anakin most likely would not have gone down the dark path. The Jedi were to blame.

 

[BatLobster]

I actually don't love that interpretation, even if it's straight from Filoni's mouth. I agree that Qui-Gon would've likely been a positive influence for Anakin, and may have kept him off the dark path. But there's simply no way to know that for certain. Also, Qui-Gon didn't free Shmi in TPM, even saying "We didn't come here to free slaves." So even with him being more of a compassionate Jedi than the rest of the council, he was still part of the problem too. Not to mention, Sidious had his eyes set on Anakin from Day 1 and if he saw Qui-Gon as an obstacle to getting what he wants, that would've factored into his schemes and manipulations.

That said I like the thematic resonance of Anakin being denied a father figure and ultimately having to become the father he never had, that's beautiful. But I don't think I agree that his fate was 100% sealed with Qui-Gon's death. It's certainly a more operatic way to think of it, but I'm not sure I agree that it's that simple.

 

[Bobber]

Qui Gon was a total moron, and a terrible Jedi.
The only reason people like him is because he's played by Liam Neeson.

 

[henzINNIT]

Qui Gon was a total moron, and a terrible Jedi.
The only reason people like him is because he's played by Liam Neeson.

Same goes for all the characters in the PT sadly, except for Sheev the dark lord of the meme.

 

[Bobber]

Same goes for all the characters in the PT sadly, except for Sheev the dark lord of the meme.

Ah, yes, the terrifying dark lord of the sith.

 

[Sian]

Ian's terrific!

 

[MaceB]

I think it's just not exactly something that's easy to tackle cinematically in a family film. The DOTF script struggled mightily with it, with awkward lines of exposition including Rey just proclaiming that she's the light and the dark...whatever that means. Like, how do you depict someone establishing a new religion and laying down what the new "rules" are, in a way that actually that works? Was Rey supposed to grab a stone tablet and read out the new Jedi commandments? Do we end with a new Jedi Council throwing out ideas for new rules, ala the ending of GOT?

My hope was always that they would bring Qui-Gon back for this.

One of the things that the prequels set up... and left hanging.. and now is a huge dangling plot hole in the series, is the Jedi's ability to disappear at death and to become a force ghost. Qui Gon did not disappear. And yet, it seems that he was the first to be able to retain his form after death. Why? What makes him different? The ability to survive after death is honestly one of the big underlying themes of the saga now... Qui-Gon figured it out, and they didn't even want to take the time to tell us how?

The books got more into this I think, but one of Qui-Gon's first lines was about the 'living force.' Being in the moment. They could have gone off that - Qui Gon could have appeared to Rey, reveled to her the truth that there isn't light or dark, but being present in the moment.. or some such thing... whatever.. And then, presto - new Jedi order. The fact that Qui-Gon could have bookended the series would have also been good.

Ehh, so much for my beautiful fan theory.

 

[henzINNIT]

Might have been nice to see Neeson again. He is everybody's dad.

I must confess, as much as I liked the idea of Hayden/Anakin getting a chance to not suck at acting in one of these films, I found his mere lines in TROS kind of awkward and terrible. I think we might have dodged a bullet

 

[fan4stic]

Qui Gon was a total moron, and a terrible Jedi.
The only reason people like him is because he's played by Liam Neeson.

Why?

I actually don't love that interpretation, even if it's straight from Filoni's mouth. I agree that Qui-Gon would've likely been a positive influence for Anakin, and may have kept him off the dark path. But there's simply no way to know that for certain. Also, Qui-Gon didn't free Shmi in TPM, even saying "We didn't come here to free slaves." So even with him being more of a compassionate Jedi than the rest of the council, he was still part of the problem too. Not to mention, Sidious had his eyes set on Anakin from Day 1 and if he saw Qui-Gon as an obstacle to getting what he wants, that would've factored into his schemes and manipulations.

That said I like the thematic resonance of Anakin being denied a father figure and ultimately having to become the father he never had, that's beautiful. But I don't think I agree that his fate was 100% sealed with Qui-Gon's death. It's certainly a more operatic way to think of it, but I'm not sure I agree that it's that simple.

He did try. Watto said no to 2 slaves in the bet.