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

It's funny looking back at the start of this thread and seeing that the main thing everyone was talking about was Matt Smith.
 
I was thinking about this the other day and one underrated positive aspect that Episode 9 gave us was Richard E. Grant as General Pryde. He really deserved a better film since his was probably the most imposing and threatening officer throughout the whole saga besides Tarkin.

I wasn't even watching Rise of Skywalker recently but I had Bram Stoker's Dracula playing on Netflix in the background the other day and Grant was in it, which made me think of it.
 
The mistake we all made was thinking Episode 9 had new things in store for us.
Funny enough, I was hyped at the time for the film, but halfway towards its release, I had a gut feeling we were in trouble. By fall of 2019, I couldn't wait for the film to come out and be done with.
 
I was thinking about this the other day and one underrated positive aspect that Episode 9 gave us was Richard E. Grant as General Pryde. He really deserved a better film since his was probably the most imposing and threatening officer throughout the whole saga besides Tarkin.

I wasn't even watching Rise of Skywalker recently but I had Bram Stoker's Dracula playing on Netflix in the background the other day and Grant was in it, which made me think of it.

Yeah, I wish he had come into the story earlier. Hux never felt legitimately threatening to me, even in TFA when he's trying so hard to be. It would've been great seeing an OG Imperial like Pryde scheming in the background as the Kylo/Hux power dynamic unfolded. The thing about Hux and Kylo is they're both whiny brats. A figure like Pryde within The First Order earlier on who has an undying allegiance to the true Emperor would've been a nice way to make The First Order more three-dimensional while quietly seeding the idea of Palpatine's return earlier in the story-- which I still contend, is not a problem in and of itself and could've worked with better setup and execution.
 
Grant was a great pick for an evil officer no doubt, shame he had basically nothing to do.

Probably a minority opinion, but I liked Hux and liked him as a sniveling weasel. I don't think he had to be personally threatening to function as an antagonist. His position and resources are what made him dangerous. He's what a lot of contemporary evil looks like tbh. An untouchable, spineless snake.
 
Grant was a great pick for an evil officer no doubt, shame he had basically nothing to do.

Probably a minority opinion, but I liked Hux and liked him as a sniveling weasel. I don't think he had to be personally threatening to function as an antagonist. His position and resources are what made him dangerous. He's what a lot of contemporary evil looks like tbh. An untouchable, spineless snake.

I think Hux is fine as a character taken on his own, but I think it just highlights the fact that the ST had a villain issue in terms of the lack of a genuinely threatening presence. Hux's position and resources being the source of why he's threatening-- yeah I can agree with that, but it also feels a bit undercooked to me considering we get so little in terms of how how The First Order came to be and rose to power so quickly.

This wouldn't be as much of an issue to me if we weren't dealing with a series that was already 6 films into its lore when the ST kicked things off. It just gets harder and harder for me to accept that they just basically handwaved away the ending of Return of the Jedi without really knowing why when they started this trilogy.
 
I think Hux is fine as a character taken on his own, but I think it just highlights the fact that the ST had a villain issue in terms of the lack of a genuinely threatening presence. Hux's position and resources being the source of why he's threatening-- yeah I can agree with that, but it also feels a bit undercooked to me considering we get so little in terms of how how The First Order came to be and rose to power so quickly.

This wouldn't be as much of an issue to me if we weren't dealing with a series that was already 6 films into its lore when the ST kicked things off. It just gets harder and harder for me to accept that they just basically handwaved away the ending of Return of the Jedi without really knowing why when they started this trilogy.

Yeah I can see that for sure. The general lack of world building was a huge problem in the whole trilogy. Walked away from TFA quite satisfied to have likable characters and the Star Wars 'feel', hoping the story would take off from there. In hindsight, essentially re-doing episode 4 is far less acceptable, and the narrative leaps made in order achieve it were poorly defined at best.

I still believe it could have worked out though. I still believe there was an episode 9 that could have wrapped the trilogy up in a satisfactory manner. It wouldn't be perfect, but there was still time to really explore how this all happened and why, and give us context about the First Order etc. It seems like none of the writers involved were interested in that. JJ pulling a whole 'new' evil army out of his arse in the final act was just about the worst thing he could have done.
 
Funny enough, I was hyped at the time for the film, but halfway towards its release, I had a gut feeling we were in trouble. By fall of 2019, I couldn't wait for the film to come out and be done with.

I felt the same way post the 'leaks', especially as a Ben Solo/Kylo Ren fan. I still can't quite get over how his character was treated - especially as rumours said he was originally scheduled to disappear in the pit 'and never be seen again', and his 'comeback' at the end was added on at the last minute. I suspect Abrams wasn't happy at him stealing Rey's thunder.

Regarding Hux...I think he could have made for an interesting bad guy if given the chance ...I honestly thought that he would end up overthrowing Kylo in Episode IX on discovering that he was responsible for Snoke's death, and not Rey.

I still can't quite get over how everyone just 'accepted' that Rey had killed Snoke, and the Praetorian guards without question!
Oh, and knocked out Kylo Ren - again!
 
Regarding Hux...I think he could have made for an interesting bad guy if given the chance ...I honestly thought that he would end up overthrowing Kylo in Episode IX on discovering that he was responsible for Snoke's death, and not Rey.

I loved the idea of the leaks that Hux was supposed to be obsessed with the Sith and all that.
You could have used that on so many interesting levels...but then, the whole trilogy had absolutely great ideas it threw away.

I try not to think too much about the wasted potential, tends to make me super upset.
I rather think about the future, hoping they will one day pick up from where Episode 9 left off and move forward...while having a god damn plan this time.
 
I would have given Hux a girlfriend. A truly evil Knight of Ren to conspire with, who'd probably betray him later.
 
Actually I always shipped him with Phasma, but an evil Sith girlfriend would have been cool!

Oh Disney...you wasted so much.
 
Funny enough, I was hyped at the time for the film, but halfway towards its release, I had a gut feeling we were in trouble. By fall of 2019, I couldn't wait for the film to come out and be done with.

Your unbridled enthusiasm and hype for this film and J.J. as director was one of the most memorable things about this film's prerelease. I imagine going back through all your posts in this thread from start to finish would be a depressing read.
 
Your unbridled enthusiasm and hype for this film and J.J. as director was one of the most memorable things about this film's prerelease. I imagine going back through all your posts in this thread from start to finish would be a depressing read.
It definitely would haha. It's why I refuse to look over them haha, but I don't regret hyping the movie up. Hype is fun, you just gotta set expectations.
 
Last edited:
The hype was fun for this one, for sure. Fantastic trailers. I don't care, I will openly admit that hearing Palpatine's cackle at the end of the first teaser was one of the most joyous moments of this entire Disney era of Star Wars for me. It put a big dumb grin on my face as a massive fan of Ian in that role. In retrospect, maybe I should've been more alarmed that JJ wasn't going to deliver a satisfying answer for his return.

I think I was just so happy because I didn't think they would have the b*lls to actually bring him back. I was hearing a lot of fan rumblings about it, but I just didn't think they'd go there and risk that kind of backlash. It was so clear to me that he offered more connective tissue to the entire saga than pretty much anyone, which I was happy to see them attempting to do.

I guess for me I was just happy to see them addressing the elephant in the room. Which is that the sequel trilogy had a Palpatine-sized hole in it. From the moment the ST was announced, my biggest interest in it was who the central threat would be. How would they justify more story? From the ominous "There's been an awakening..." line in the first teaser, I was so intrigued with where the might go with it and how it would tie into the dark side lore. To say the least, I was very disappointed with Snoke's character. Not just that he died, but just the fact that he turned out to be a pretty meh rent-a-Palps, no offense to Andy.

Will die on the hill that Palpatine's return could've worked.
 
I wasn't really hyped for TROS, mostly since the discourse around TLJ and Solo was so toxic on both sides of fandom.

I could see why the brought back Palpatine, and it was nice to see Ian McDiarmid again, but I wasn't optimistic that the film would end up uniting fandom the way Lucasfilm hoped it would .

I still think TFA had the best hype and trailers in the lead up to it, since, of course, at that point, there weren't entrenched positions in the fandom, there weren't divides. there was alot of speculation and excitement, and people wanted to go into the film for a good time.

That first teaser for TFA was great


.
 
I wasn't hyped for TROS from the moment Abrams was announced to return. I knew I wasn't going to like it then. Abrams just isn't my guy
 
The hype train for TFA was so damn fun. It was so refreshing, and it felt so good to have new Star Wars. The first teaser got me so hyped, and then the theatrical trailer at Star Wars celebration just sent my hype to overdrive. Honestly, my hype didn't die down for any of this until the discourse over TLJ started. I didn't love TLJ on first watch, but that paled in comparison to my disappointment in the Star Wars community as a whole. It soured the whole experience for me, and still does to this day as much as I love Mandalorian.

It's ironic considering I now think The Last Jedi is the strongest film in the ST.
 
The hype train for TFA was so damn fun. It was so refreshing, and it felt so good to have new Star Wars. The first teaser got me so hyped, and then the theatrical trailer at Star Wars celebration just sent my hype to overdrive. Honestly, my hype didn't die down for any of this until the discourse over TLJ started. I didn't love TLJ on first watch, but that paled in comparison to my disappointment in the Star Wars community as a whole. It soured the whole experience for me, and still does to this day as much as I love Mandalorian.

It's ironic considering I now think The Last Jedi is the strongest film in the ST.

That's pretty much how I feel as well.

The discourse made things so toxic, and the "pick a side" mentality ,makes it tough for me to want to revisit the ST or want to rewatch them, including TROS.

The discourse around the TLJ and TROS tainted them for me, and that's aside from what I feel about them as films.

It no longer became fun to talk about, or speculate about the next SW film, since it basically just became a shouting match and there wasn't much room for nuance.

Mandalorian is the saving grace for me, and I really enjoy it.
I also really liked Rogue One as well.
 
That's pretty much how I feel as well.

The discourse made things so toxic, and the "pick a side" mentality ,makes it tough for me to want to revisit the ST or want to rewatch them, including TROS.

The discourse around the TLJ and TROS tainted them for me, and that's aside from what I feel about them as films.

It no longer became fun to talk about, or speculate about the next SW film, since it basically just became a shouting match and there wasn't much room for nuance.

Mandalorian is the saving grace for me, and I really enjoy it.
I also really liked Rogue One as well.
Yup, same for me. It's just not something I enjoy talking about anymore. Rogue One is a fabulous movie, and Mandalorian is amazing, but I don't think I'll get super emotionally invested in a Star Wars film again. Outside of the OT.
 
TLJ is probably the last time I'll ever love Star Wars. The discourse soured everything outside of the films, and then TROS soured them too. Not ruling out something new that catches me, but I've never connected with the spin-off material in all honesty. It's all degrees of 'fine' to me, peppered with moments of skin-crawling fan-service. Star Wars is just another Disney IP at this point, which was always the case I suppose, but there was hope at first that this would be different. Doesn't mean nothing good can happen, but there's no integrity to the story, so it'll happen by chance in the pursuit of money.
 
There is a deep part of me that will always love Star Wars. It's fundamental to me, to how I was brought up in the world. After the near disaster of TROS and the general bummer that was the sequel trilogy I might've been convinced I could never feel any love for the franchise ever again, but the season two finale of The Mandalorian proved to me how much it could still move me. And for now, and probably for a while yet to come, that will only be relegated to the realm of television. I hope one day it can return to the big screen as the true culturally defining spectacle that it once was but I don't think it will happen for quite some time. They still have yet to find a way to untether themselves from the original trilogy and strike out into a new iconography. It's been difficult for me to get jazzed for the Boba Fett show because it just seems like more of the same.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top
monitoring_string = "afb8e5d7348ab9e99f73cba908f10802"