The Rise of Skywalker JJ & The Last Jedi

[henzINNIT]

Apologies if this seems like a redundant thread, but this is a topic that regularly comes up and I thought it deserved a poll.

The Last Jedi had a profound effect on the franchise and on this film in particular. There were many instances where TROS 'responded' directly to the film that preceded it. JJ clearly felt pressure to mend a divided fanbase and tried to address a number of common complaints. The question is, was he right in how he approached this? Were the retcons worth it? Did he do TLJ dirty? Did he fix things or break them more?

Rey's lineage is the key one I suppose, with Rose's role, Holdo maneuver, Ren's helmet etc etc following suit. Poll is binary but please elaborate further in the thread. Your feelings on TLJ will likely be very relevant.

 

[writer0327]

I don't have a problem with the idea of JJ doing whatever he wanted with IX, discarding the ideas set up in TLJ. I have a problem with discarding those ideas and giving us a fanservice/nostalgia remix instead.

 

[Fincher]

For me, fixing The Last Jedi was definitely the way to go, but from what I know about Rise of Skywalker (I haven't seen it), Abrams didn't really fix it right.

Spoiler

The most important thing was to get rid of Reylo, while he actually doubled down on that. They should have gone with Rey and Finn instead. After Rey's DIY approach to The Force in TFA and her rejection of Luke in TLJ, they should have just had her not train with anyone again, period. My expectations about a character are based on what you do with them, so I see pushing her into that padawan learner role like Luke or Anakin to be like pushing a square block through a round hole. I wouldn't want it even if you had the time to actually justify it. It also sounds like they're downplaying her powers again. Why would she not be able to see force ghosts when Luke could do that with basically no training? I didn't even think that required anything on the living person's part, Obi-Wan just showed up and talked to him. Some fixes are good, like sidelining Rose, getting the main three together, removing Kylo as lead villain, but it just doesn't sound like it hit the mark for me. Hopefully it's a good deal better than The Last Jedi, anyway.

I just think it's reality that even to the extent that you try to appease those who didn't like the last one, they won't all dislike it for the exact same reasons.

 

[SomeOldGuy]

Having now seen RoS, I’m struggling to see much serious retconning of TLJ. Certainly not to the extent of “JJ is giving the finger to Rian Johnson” takes I was reading a few days ago. Arguably the biggest was

Spoiler

Rey’s parents

But even then it was always the case that in TLJ Kylo was lying or just wrong. And as far as the whole

Spoiler

You don’t have to be a Skywalker/Palpatine to use the force, it’s for everyone

theme in TLJ, well, RoS has multiple characters who are CLEARLY not special do that.

And re Luke, when he says

Spoiler

I was wrong

well, yeah, that was sort of the point of the end of TLJ and it baffles me people don’t get that.

 

[Closerframe]

JJ's decision to undermine Johnson's decision to make Rey's parents nobodies was an obvious twist that isn't really undoing anything, but it's the fact that Luke seems entirely different in TROS vs TLJ. If JJ were to continue his film off of where TLJ left off, we should have seen Luke talking to Ben as a force ghost. We don't get that follow-up. Instead, we're subjected to a "memory" of his father which doesn't feel earned because the entire first half, Ren is still the evil wannabe we've grown accustomed to.

I would have preferred JJ to double down on what Johnson set up for him. At least at that point, the trilogy would feel more cohesive instead of a utter mess.

 

[Silver Surfer]

F yeah, hated TLJ and it's story choices.

 

[Spider-Fan]

JJ's decision to undermine Johnson's decision to make Rey's parents nobodies was an obvious twist that isn't really undoing anything, but it's the fact that Luke seems entirely different in TROS vs TLJ. If JJ were to continue his film off of where TLJ left off, we should have seen Luke talking to Ben as a force ghost. We don't get that follow-up. Instead, we're subjected to a "memory" of his father which doesn't feel earned because the entire first half, Ren is still the evil wannabe we've grown accustomed to.

I would have preferred JJ to double down on what Johnson set up for him. At least at that point, the trilogy would feel more cohesive instead of a utter mess.

Luke being different in ROS is not a retcon. Luke by the film's end knew he was wrong, so him having a more positive outlook was perfectly in line with his arc

 

[BatLobster]

I don't agree with the framing of the question.


Sure, you can say he's just putting on his PR face here and being nice, but idk, it seems genuine enough to me. I really didn't take anything as a direct "middle finger" or retcon. I find that people who seem to need to view creative choices in this way are either people that hated TLJ and want to think that in order to pep themselves up to like this film more, or people who were so attached to TLJ's choices that they're unable to consider that the middle chapter of a trilogy is just one chunk of the story, and was never supposed to represent the full context of everything.

Certainly JJ and Rian have different point of views and different approaches to the material-- that's natural, they're different people and different writers/directors. Maybe some day we'll get the full story and find out that there was more tension than they've let on. We know there may have been some tension between Bad Robot and LFL and that Rian worked more closely with the story group. That still doesn't amount to J.J. and Rian hating each other or each other's films the way that narrative tends to be spun by people who are just making assumptions.

I'm trying to give them both the benefit of the doubt here, because they both seem like level-headed and professional people. Even if they didn't fully see eye to eye on this trilogy, I don't think they approach the material and make certain choices to directly insult the other. That just seems really petty and beneath both of them. I think JJ did his best to move the story forward from TLJ and bridge the gap between the two films to create a resolution, especially considering Episode IX was always meant to be Leia's film and he got dealt a very tough hand with Carrie passing away.

 

[Brother Jack]

Luke being different in ROS is not a retcon. Luke by the film's end knew he was wrong, so him having a more positive outlook was perfectly in line with his arc

That's correct. A lot of the time when people criticize Luke in TLJ it's like they forget about the last 20-30 minutes of the movie. It pretty blatantly spells out that he was wrong, and his apotheosis into legend affirms his faith in the Jedi and, in particular, Rey as the heir apparent of it.

 

[henzINNIT]

Agreed with all that Luke is not a retcon. Nearly everything he says is though.

I don't agree with the framing of the question.

I understand. I wasn't completely happy with it myself.

Sure, you can say he's just putting on his PR face here and being nice, but idk, it seems genuine enough to me. I really didn't take anything as a direct "middle finger" or retcon. I find that people who seem to need to view creative choices in this way are either people that hated TLJ and want to think that in order to pep themselves up to like this film more, or people who were so attached to TLJ's choices that they're unable to consider that the middle chapter of a trilogy is just one chunk of the story, and was never supposed to represent the full context of everything.

Certainly JJ and Rian have different point of views and different approaches to the material-- that's natural, they're different people and different writers/directors. Maybe some day we'll get the full story and find out that there was more tension than they've let on. We know there may have been some tension between Bad Robot and LFL and that Rian worked more closely with the story group. That still doesn't amount to J.J. and Rian hating each other or each other's films the way that narrative tends to be spun by people who are just making assumptions.

I'm trying to give them both the benefit of the doubt here, because they both seem like level-headed and professional people. Even if they didn't fully see eye to eye on this trilogy, I don't think they approach the material and make certain choices to directly insult the other. That just seems really petty and beneath both of them. I think JJ did his best to move the story forward from TLJ and bridge the gap between the two films to create a resolution, especially considering Episode IX was always meant to be Leia's film and he got dealt a very tough hand with Carrie passing away.

I think there is a ton of PR involved here personally. JJ seems pretty genuine but I think there were a lot of moments that were designed to appease fans on all sides. I think this comes from a good place in general, and isn't necessarily a bad thing. It all comes down to execution in the end, and whether it enhances the story.

I think fanboys tend to lean into conspiracy often. I would be shocked if there was any animosity between Johnson and Abrams.

 

[BatLobster]

I think there is a ton of PR involved here personally. JJ seems pretty genuine but I think there were a lot of moments that were designed to appease fans on all sides. I think this comes from a good place in general, and isn't necessarily a bad thing. It all comes down to execution in the end, and whether it enhances the story.

I think fanboys tend to lean into conspiracy often. I would be shocked if there was any animosity between Johnson and Abrams.

I agree with all of that.

 

[godisawesome]

I actually find this question kind of funny, because to me, Abrams was in a no-win situation because of the ways TFA and TLJ undercut each other and how neither, without serious retcons was able to facilitate a satisfying conclusion to the 9 film story the same way ROTJ still managed to be a satisfying ending for the 6 film story Pre-Disney.


Now, he would have been better served going all in after TLJ, or all out and into a more conventional sequel to TFA; and I don’t mean this as a statement about which ST film before it was better, more just a recognition that their themes and characters arcs opposed each other... or maybe aren’t very fruitful for what TROS needed to be. I mean, who’s the male lead and what actor should get the main ambition for that demographic-focused storyline, Finn or Kylo? Should Rey still be enamored with Kylo and weirdly non-chalant about the horrible things he’s done to her, or should we embrace the fact she should probably loathe him like a human being would? Can Kylo be both the main over-arching villain *and* “half the protagonist?” And *how* should he be the main antagonist? And what the hell are we doing with the Skywalkers, and *how* can we try to make a satisfactory ending to their story?


Abrams would have been better served embracing a hard direction devoted to one film’s priorities and themes, or at least making difficult choices knowing that the fan base was splintered, and maximizing output where it would be best served.


Instead, he tried to compromise... and unfortunately for me, seemed to choose the exact opposite answers to the things I liked and loathed about both films:

Spoiler

Compromises favoring TFA’s style that end up being kind of bad for me:

• Being a remake movie like TFA, even in areas where it really shouldn’t be hard to differentiate with the property.
• More frickin’ superweapons.
• Still wanting someone to be a Palpatine-style overall villain... because they never really did want Kylo to be more than Diet Darth Vader. I *wanted* to se Kylo as the main villain, because I love to *hate* him.
• A refusal to do any more lore work than was necessary for the present story, and a love for mystery boxes that arguably hurt the Saga-length story.
• Painfully going for nostalgic moments without thinking them through, when that would t be that hard.

Compromises favoring TLJ’s style that end up *really* bad for me:

• Frickin’ Reylo. For some reason , no one at LFL had the cajones to call a spade a spade, or in this case, a shallow-ass abusive romance and liability to Rey’s characterization. *This* is the thing that stands where TFA had played a fairly strong and empathetic relationship between Finn and Rey (which had favored Rey)... and mostly for the sake of Adam Driver playing a near-mute for five minutes.
• Rey Not-A-Skywalker. Honestly Rey Palpatine should be considered just a bad compromise altogether; you’ve got all the elitist and predictable elements of Rey Skywalker or Solo, but *none* of the powerful advantages of Rey Related for her, her feud with Kylo, or for the Skywalker family, and you’ve simultaneously abandoned the potential of Rey Random.
• Demoting Finn away from male lead, being unambitious with his story. Really, just the general demotion he’s gone through since TFA sucks, and almost all of it seems to be for the favor of Ben frickin’ Solo, and I don’t care about Ben frickin’ Solo.

To me, if you were going to decide that Kylo couldn’t be the main villain, and were willing to kill one of Lucas’s old sacred cows about Palpatine as a villain in spite of how that would reject not just the OT’s ending but also TLJ’s goals and story... then just go ahead and have Rey be Luke’s kid or Ben’s lost sister. And if you really think that Kylo/Ben doesn’t have the tie to explore his actual character or origins... than recognize that’s because he’s not strong enough to be the male lead at this point.


Or, if you don’t want to make Rey a real Skywalker, and think that Kylo *has* to be the male lead, have the cajones to make him the Big Bad and overall threat, and deal with the fact you’ve screwed over the Skywalkers in a more active way than TROS wound up trying to.

 

[Travesty]

Not only do I think JJ was right for doing it, but I hope a new director comes in and retcons this entire trilogy. Thanos snap this trilogy out of existence, please.

 

[ironman_rick]

After looking at mandalorian....i think the only director that can make a decent original SW movie loved by fans and critics is Jon Favreau.

If Lucasfilm and Disney were smart, they will just give him the keys and all the creative control to make the next set of movies after a gap of few years.

 

[moviedoors]

I actually find this question kind of funny, because to me, Abrams was in a no-win situation because of the ways TFA and TLJ undercut each other and how neither, without serious retcons was able to facilitate a satisfying conclusion to the 9 film story the same way ROTJ still managed to be a satisfying ending for the 6 film story Pre-Disney.


Now, he would have been better served going all in after TLJ, or all out and into a more conventional sequel to TFA; and I don’t mean this as a statement about which ST film before it was better, more just a recognition that their themes and characters arcs opposed each other... or maybe aren’t very fruitful for what TROS needed to be. I mean, who’s the male lead and what actor should get the main ambition for that demographic-focused storyline, Finn or Kylo? Should Rey still be enamored with Kylo and weirdly non-chalant about the horrible things he’s done to her, or should we embrace the fact she should probably loathe him like a human being would? Can Kylo be both the main over-arching villain *and* “half the protagonist?” And *how* should he be the main antagonist? And what the hell are we doing with the Skywalkers, and *how* can we try to make a satisfactory ending to their story?


Abrams would have been better served embracing a hard direction devoted to one film’s priorities and themes, or at least making difficult choices knowing that the fan base was splintered, and maximizing output where it would be best served.


Instead, he tried to compromise... and unfortunately for me, seemed to choose the exact opposite answers to the things I liked and loathed about both films:

Spoiler

Compromises favoring TFA’s style that end up being kind of bad for me:

• Being a remake movie like TFA, even in areas where it really shouldn’t be hard to differentiate with the property.
• More frickin’ superweapons.
• Still wanting someone to be a Palpatine-style overall villain... because they never really did want Kylo to be more than Diet Darth Vader. I *wanted* to se Kylo as the main villain, because I love to *hate* him.
• A refusal to do any more lore work than was necessary for the present story, and a love for mystery boxes that arguably hurt the Saga-length story.
• Painfully going for nostalgic moments without thinking them through, when that would t be that hard.

Compromises favoring TLJ’s style that end up *really* bad for me:

• Frickin’ Reylo. For some reason , no one at LFL had the cajones to call a spade a spade, or in this case, a shallow-ass abusive romance and liability to Rey’s characterization. *This* is the thing that stands where TFA had played a fairly strong and empathetic relationship between Finn and Rey (which had favored Rey)... and mostly for the sake of Adam Driver playing a near-mute for five minutes.
• Rey Not-A-Skywalker. Honestly Rey Palpatine should be considered just a bad compromise altogether; you’ve got all the elitist and predictable elements of Rey Skywalker or Solo, but *none* of the powerful advantages of Rey Related for her, her feud with Kylo, or for the Skywalker family, and you’ve simultaneously abandoned the potential of Rey Random.
• Demoting Finn away from male lead, being unambitious with his story. Really, just the general demotion he’s gone through since TFA sucks, and almost all of it seems to be for the favor of Ben frickin’ Solo, and I don’t care about Ben frickin’ Solo.

To me, if you were going to decide that Kylo couldn’t be the main villain, and were willing to kill one of Lucas’s old sacred cows about Palpatine as a villain in spite of how that would reject not just the OT’s ending but also TLJ’s goals and story... then just go ahead and have Rey be Luke’s kid or Ben’s lost sister. And if you really think that Kylo/Ben doesn’t have the tie to explore his actual character or origins... than recognize that’s because he’s not strong enough to be the male lead at this point.


Or, if you don’t want to make Rey a real Skywalker, and think that Kylo *has* to be the male lead, have the cajones to make him the Big Bad and overall threat, and deal with the fact you’ve screwed over the Skywalkers in a more active way than TROS wound up trying to.

I looked again, and Rey is NOT enamored with Kylo by the end of The Last Jedi. There was a period in the middle of the film where she thought he was reachable, but she realizes she was wrong and literally turns her back on him at the end of the film.

 

[henzINNIT]

I've sat with this for a little while. I want to like TROS but little bits eat at me and the film feels really cowardly overall. Here's my main issue:

Rey Palpatine.
It went down a little better on first viewing, but I don't like this at all. It bothers me on a number of levels. First, the revelation of Rey Nobody in TLJ was and should be final. Johnson may have stamped on some of JJ's mystery boxes, but he gave answers to questions, he didn't write over answers. This is a total retcon which is poor form (though admittedly consistent with the franchise). It hurts the scene from TLJ, creates odd continuity holes and convolutes a simple backstory.
Second, it doesn't really add anything to Rey's story. Previously, she found out her parents were crappy people who didn't care about her. Finding out your grand-dad was an even crappier person just doesn't really complicate things for Rey. She worries she'll turn bad but I never did. Finding out you are from evil heritage is nothing new in this series. Rey now also has parents that loved her. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to feel about that. We don't know them, and they're long dead. They died to protect her, so why doesn't Rey take their name? This doesn't add to the story, in fact it detracts from the bonds she is making in this trilogy.
Lastly, I feel it squanders a lot of the potential too. If you wanted to build on Rey's story, you could have your cake and eat it too by tying her birth back to Anakin's origin. Explore how Palps creates life in random women, delving in to the lore, explaining Rey's power, stitching the entire saga together and really challenging Rey, who is now literally created from darkness, and you could honour TLJ's revelations at the same time. I liked the Zombie Palpatine stuff but he wasn't used well. Not a patch on Episode 3 Palpy. Didn't even get a decent meme out of it

And a gripe:

Snoke
I did not expect to even be talking about him, but the Snoke's in a jar was really lame. It is a retcon that I just don't think works. He was clearly a separate person before this, he acted different and was even described as not being Sith. He also said he connected Rey and Kylo, which doesn't really track with this new dyad stuff. Palps is surprised by their connection in TROS, but Snoke in TLJ claims responsibility and appears to know that they are a significant pair. For such a brief moment, it hits like someone smashing the wrong piece into a jigsaw puzzle. It would have been better to move on entirely.

Also, Ren's helmet was totally pointless.

 

[Donner]

I never thought about that before. Palpatine didn't know about the Force Dyad, but his puppet Snoke knew about a connection and subsequently bridged their minds? It seems rather stupid that Palpatine, having survived ROTJ and masterminded Ben turning into Kylo and foreseeing Rey on the throne as Empress wouldn't know about a connection as powerful as the Force Dyad between the two people he was hell bent on manipulating since birth.

 

[Limonade]

After looking at mandalorian....i think the only director that can make a decent original SW movie loved by fans and critics is Jon Favreau.

If Lucasfilm and Disney were smart, they will just give him the keys and all the creative control to make the next set of movies after a gap of few years.

Yeah but the Mandalorian was directed by multiple directors and it still felt like a very singular vision.

As much as JJ likes to not throw colleagues under the bus--the vision in the sequel trilogy was vary divided.

 

[Filmfreak]

I think The Last Jedi is probably the worst movie in the franchise and I still voted no. Retconing things and not having a clear path was that movie's main problem to begin with.

 

[BatLobster]

Not only do I think JJ was right for doing it, but I hope a new director comes in and retcons this entire trilogy. Thanos snap this trilogy out of existence, please.

I remember people demanding Disney do that for the prequels and remake them when the sale was announced. Never gonna happen, and no need for it anyway. They just need to tell new stories.

 

[Travesty]

Of course it wont happen. It's clearly a joke.

 

[BatLobster]

Terrio on the "Retcons"

When Luke appeared on Crait in The Last Jedi, he apologized to Leia for turning his back on the fight, the Jedi Order and his legacy. He basically admitted that the guy who tossed his lightsaber aside on Ahch-To was wrong before sacrificing his life to save the Resistance and spread hope throughout the galaxy. However, I’ve already noticed that people are projecting the notion that Luke’s line — ”A Jedi’s weapon deserves more respect” — was a swipe at Rian Johnson's first-act choice to have him throw the weapon away. However, I thought you were reaffirming the very conclusion that Rian arrived at for Luke and how Luke was wrong.

Terrio: That’s exactly it. Those people who see it as a meta-argument between J.J. and Rian are missing the point, I think. At the end of The Last Jedi, Luke has changed. When people look at that, I feel that they misread the ending of The Last Jedi. Throughout The Last Jedi, Luke is stuck, just as so many of the characters in The Empire Strikes Back were stuck. The Falcon’s hyperdrive is literally stuck. The Last Jedi is a really strong middle act because it seems like everyone is spinning their wheels and stuck in certain ways — just as they are in The Empire Strikes Back. I mean that in the sense of everyone is trying to move forward, but as in any middle act, they can’t quite get there. When Luke says, “A Jedi’s weapon deserves more respect” in Episode IX, that’s Luke speaking. That’s his own character. He’s making fun of himself. He’s saying to Rey, “Please don’t make the same mistake that I did.” That’s another theme of the film. How do we learn from our ancestors? How do we learn from our parents? How do we learn from the previous generation? How do we learn from all the good things that they did but not repeat their mistakes? In that moment, it truly is a character moment because we quite deliberately set up the same situation of tossing a saber, but this time, Luke is there to save Rey from making a bad choice. I think it would be a bad misreading to think that that was somehow me and J.J. having an argument with Rian. It was more like we were in dialogue with Rian by using what Luke did at the beginning of The Last Jedi to now say that history will not repeat itself and all these characters have grown.

Look, you can call it PR spin all day, but the fact is what he's saying makes 100% perfect sense from a writing standpoint. These are creative professionals who get paid big bucks to tell stories that move us, not bickering children on schoolyard.

 

[Frodo]

Apologies if this seems like a redundant thread, but this is a topic that regularly comes up and I thought it deserved a poll.

The Last Jedi had a profound effect on the franchise and on this film in particular. There were many instances where TROS 'responded' directly to the film that preceded it. JJ clearly felt pressure to mend a divided fanbase and tried to address a number of common complaints. The question is, was he right in how he approached this? Were the retcons worth it? Did he do TLJ dirty? Did he fix things or break them more?

Rey's lineage is the key one I suppose, with Rose's role, Holdo maneuver, Ren's helmet etc etc following suit. Poll is binary but please elaborate further in the thread. Your feelings on TLJ will likely be very relevant.

Well, in response to your questions, i've pretty much given my answers to them in one form or another over different threads. I've also given my views on TLJ several times, so I won't go down that rabbit hole again.

I do think however TROS was a response to TLJ and Solo. The fan reactions to those two films were like a one -two punch for Disney and Lucasfilm.

We also have to keep in mind that Disney was burned by the MCU fan backlash to James Gunn's firing from GOTG 3 around the same time as they were being flamed for SW. Further, Disney, in addition to Sony, also caught flack from the fandom for the Spiderman/MCU break up.

These fan backlashes have served as wake up calls and alerts to Disney. For good or ill, they've put them on notice that fanboys won't be ignored. These backlashes sent the ground to Disney to respond to fan dissatisfaction as opposed to ignoring them.

Despite the claim by some fans and geek pundits that ,"Disney doesn't care about the SW complaints because they had billion dollar films", its clear that they did take those complaints to heart, and that it did effect where TROS went.

Ultimately, JJ did the job that Disney wanted him to do, and if anything ,I think he was operating on their mandate to "make a film that will please everyone".

In their minds, that meant minimizing or downplaying most of the controversial elements of TLJ, answering fan complaints, bringing back fan favorites, etc.

At the same time, I think JJ fully agreed with that approach, and very much did not agree with TLJ story choices, despite whatever he may say publicly. Whether the final product is what JJ prefers is another question.

Bottom line, we wouldn't have gotten the film we got if Disney didn't want it.

 

[TheVileOne]

I mean The Mandalorian has a baby that looks like Yoda that's "strong in the Force" and knows how to do Force abilities with NO TRAINING. Just saying.

Somehow the baby already knows how to do Force heal and how to stop objects and make them float already. And it can't even speak yet.

 

[Mani-Man]

I mean The Mandalorian has a baby that looks like Yoda that's "strong in the Force" and knows how to do Force abilities with NO TRAINING. Just saying.

Somehow the baby already knows how to do Force heal and how to stop objects and make them float already. And it can't even speak yet.

But...but its not a female baby yoda so its okay.
Because god forbid that those damn women are natural gifted or capable of using the force...whats next? Do they want to wear pants? What has the Star Wars galaxy become. XD

Seriously, nobody gave a **** that a baby can use the force like this but were losing it over everything Rey did...even breathing.
Star wars "fans" are weird.