The Rise of Skywalker Reactions to "Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker"

[MahvelBaby!]

What if Rian Johnson made a completely original star wars movie with all new characters? I think that has a chance to be great.

 

[Doctor Jones]

What if Rian Johnson made a completely original star wars movie with all new characters? I think that has a chance to be great.

I've thought this. It's possible. But on one hand, because he ****ed up TLJ, I'm skeptical of anything he would do with SW now and have no interest in it.

And I'd wait for the actual reviews to come out. These are Tweets which need to be brief and poppy to get your attention. I still think the reviews will be fine.

 

[Captain Tired]

What if Rian Johnson made a completely original star wars movie with all new characters? I think that has a chance to be great.

Considering all the rich, vibrant new characters he brought to TLJ (Rose and Captain Purplehair especially), probably not...

 

[Roose Bolton]

As long as the characters are great and the stories are great, and you're invested in everything going on, there's no limit to where you can take this large universe. This franchise now has just been wheel spinning. They lost out on a lot of potential. We could have seen the New Republic, Han and Leia in different places in life, we could have seen Luke train Kylo Ren with his fall to the dark side and the Knights of Ren being villains as this new dark side cult, throw in some Imperial remnants as insurgents for good measure trying to hold onto what they'll never get back. Basically, all that backstory from TFA was more interesting than the movie. And you could still have Rey be your protagonist.

The Legend EU gets flat out stupid and insane, but in hindsight I can appreciate some of that stuff because they did some different stuff. At least the Yuuzhan Vong were different. Joruus C'baoth. A psychotic cloned dark Jedi? That's awesome!

These movies are just very conservative.

I’m not saying I disagree, but this is one of the few times I’ve heard someone call C’baoth awesome lol

 

[Schlosser85]

What if Rian Johnson made a completely original star wars movie with all new characters? I think that has a chance to be great.

On the one hand, most of Rian Johnson's original stuff is awesome.

On the other hand, him and Star Wars was such a bad, trilogy-derailing bad mix the first time, I'm pretty ehhhhhhh and would rather he just stick to doing totally original non-franchise work like Looper and Knives Out.

 

[Schlosser85]

lol, one of my go-to online critics James Berardinelli hasn't posted a full review yet, but on his Twitter he says "Just got back from Rise of Skywalker. I'm depressed".

 

[KaijuDude1992]

I mean maybe if Johnson was doing his own standalone trilogy or something I wouldn't mind, but after TLJ and especially after seeing and loving Knives Out I say just let him keep doing original stuff like that or Brick or Looper and keep him as far away from this connected stuff as possible.

 

[Detective Conan]

lol, one of my go-to online critics James Berardinelli hasn't posted a full review yet, but on his Twitter he says "Just got back from Rise of Skywalker. I'm depressed".

Man, I gotta say I’m more excited about the reviews dropping than watching this movie.

I wonder if this will be the first movie that Abrams will have directed to be rated Rotten by RT. Me thinks this will still be fresh but now I’m thinking it’ll be more in the high 65-75% range instead of my previous prediction of the low 80-90% range.

 

[jmc]

There's a more rotten vibe about this one. The premier is usually when the most praise is given to a film like this because the people chosen are generally hand picked by the company to attend. The fact that those thought to be the most likely to reap praise onto the film aren't doing so doesn't bode well for its RT score, IMO.

 

[Limonade]

Yup. But I think it needs to be said that, competition against TRoS is rather weak. So regardless, of what these critics think, I feel that Star Wars will still open number one. The question, though, becomes how much will it bring in opening weekend.

 

[jmc]

It will open number one. The question is whether people we watch it again. We'll know more in a few hours just what the overall consensus is

 

[MahvelBaby!]

It's looking to match TLJ worldwide I read.

 

[jmc]

It's the repeat business that really matters. WOM is going to be interesting on this to say the least.

 

[Detective Conan]

There's a more rotten vibe about this one. The premier is usually when the most praise is given to a film like this because the people chosen are generally hand picked by the company to attend. The fact that those thought to be the most likely to reap praise onto the film aren't doing so doesn't bode well for its RT score, IMO.

I thought the same thing. I have a bad feeling about this....

 

[Detective Conan]

 

[Iceman]

What if Rian Johnson made a completely original star wars movie with all new characters? I think that has a chance to be great.

I wish they’d given him that to start with. It could have worked well.

 

[godisawesome]

To be honest, regardless of TROS’s quality, it was almost guaranteed to take a hit in critical reception.

How do you make a sequel to TLJ? And I don’t mean that because I hate TLJ (I do, but that’s not the point I’m making.)

Seriously.

How do you make a sequel to TLJ?!?

I mean, TLJ had a tone of finality, fundamentally was not really invested in escalating the external conflicts of the film, and the only major internal conflict it was really invested in was Kylo’s. With Rey, the story acts to undercut the personal nature of her feud with Kylo, doesn’t really try and risk her falling to the dark side, and makes Kylo a less effective physical antagonist to push her forward.

And Finn’s time was kind of shuffled into a side plot and demotion into a sidekick role, where his main story going forward was whether or not he would move on to Rose, a character who clearly is supposed to be a love interest first and foremost.

By its very nature, TLJ was not set up to really make TROS an intuitive trilogy capper for the main character’s story. Kylo was made the overall villain, which is good, but let’s face it, the state of his soul was also supposed to be the main conflict going forward... when he’d had two films making redemption for him a long shot in believability.

And that’s before diving into how diametrically opposed TLJ’s creative philosophy feels compared to trying to make a “satisfactory” ending to the Skywalker Saga... where the bar to reach would be the satisfaction of ROTJ.

All that, before we get Palpatine returning in the eleventh hour.

 

[Detective Conan]

One way to do a sequel to Last Jedi is to use the status quo it left the Star Wars universe in as a starting point to do something new and different. That was part of the point of the Last Jedi which was essentially to challenge what we know as the familiar and place the franchise in a new and fresh territory that we’ve never been to before. It felt radical, it felt unpredictable. I thought for all it’s faults, I thought The Last Jedi left the series in an interesting place narratively that could be the building blocks for a rather interesting follow-up.

There was an uncertainty that Last Jedi left us with that in a way was kind of freeing from all the obsessive fan speculations about who’s related to what or who came from what but J.J wanted to go back to retreading familiar ground which ran contrary to how one should properly follow TLJ. Now by bringing back the Emperor and doing so much retconning he’s essentially made a movie that feels like an apology for the last movie. The old saying, “if you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one” kind of applies here. If Johnson was the wrong person to follow what Abrams did with TFA then I think it’s fair to say Abrams was the wrong person to follow what Johnson did with TLJ.

 

[Detective Conan]

Uh-oh.....

 

[jmc]

To be honest, regardless of TROS’s quality, it was almost guaranteed to take a hit in critical reception.

How do you make a sequel to TLJ? And I don’t mean that because I hate TLJ (I do, but that’s not the point I’m making.)

Seriously.

How do you make a sequel to TLJ?!?

I mean, TLJ had a tone of finality, fundamentally was not really invested in escalating the external conflicts of the film, and the only major internal conflict it was really invested in was Kylo’s. With Rey, the story acts to undercut the personal nature of her feud with Kylo, doesn’t really try and risk her falling to the dark side, and makes Kylo a less effective physical antagonist to push her forward.

And Finn’s time was kind of shuffled into a side plot and demotion into a sidekick role, where his main story going forward was whether or not he would move on to Rose, a character who clearly is supposed to be a love interest first and foremost.

By its very nature, TLJ was not set up to really make TROS an intuitive trilogy capper for the main character’s story. Kylo was made the overall villain, which is good, but let’s face it, the state of his soul was also supposed to be the main conflict going forward... when he’d had two films making redemption for him a long shot in believability.

And that’s before diving into how diametrically opposed TLJ’s creative philosophy feels compared to trying to make a “satisfactory” ending to the Skywalker Saga... where the bar to reach would be the satisfaction of ROTJ.

All that, before we get Palpatine returning in the eleventh hour.

The truth is you can't. The final shot in TLJ make no sense as the ending to the second part of a three act structure. That's what's weird about the movie, it's somehow the final two acts of a trilogy crammed into one movie. I heard for the longest time people say the ending left them excited because they don't know where the story goes from here, but that's inherently the problem. If you're creating something with a three act structure you actually do want to have an idea of the direction the third act takes you. How you get there can be left a mystery, but the general path should be able to be seen. "We left our characters here with this problem left to solve." Not once in the last 2 years has there been any coherent idea from anyone about how this trilogy ends, because the characters for all intense and purpose were left with not much else to do after the second film.

 

[DKDetective]

I once thought along your lines, but it became clear to me anyway after TLJ that Star Wars can never truly be separated from the events of the OT. And maybe that's ok. You might be able to create any number of stories within that world, but having stories that people care about is where the issue lies. It's a big universe, but the drama is very much a family soap opera. Which is why I contend the overarching plot to this ST should have been about Rey, the junkyard orphan, becoming a member of that family. Essentially becoming Luke's adopted daughter, becoming a Skywalker through a father/daughter like relationship. That plot has heart to it. Something that is sorely missing from the ST.

Exactly, the core Saga needs to be about family. That is what resonates about the OT from the moment they made Vader Luke's father. Despite its other flaws, JJ and Kasdan did seem to be trying to set up such a story with TFA. That is what the promise was at the end of TFA. Instead, Rian chucked that narrative over the cliff with the Skywalker lightsaber straight away. The OT benefited from different creative voices with each installment, but it had the consistency of George's voice from start to finish.

 

[jmc]

Exactly, the core Saga needs to be about family. That is what resonates about the OT from the moment they made Vader Luke's father. Despite its other flaws, JJ and Kasdan did seem to be trying to set up such a story with TFA. That is what the promise was at the end of TFA. Instead, Rian chucked that narrative over the cliff with the Skywalker lightsaber straight away. The OT benefited from different creative voices with each installment, but it had the consistency of George's voice from start to finish.

The question I keep coming back to with all of this is simply, why? For the life of me, I don't understand why this was allowed to happen. Kennedy gets a lot of crap thrown her way undeservedly, there's no denying she's worked with some of the best talent in the industry over the last 30 years. But what clear is that she's not actually a Star Wars fan. So, what was her goal for all of this? Was it simply to sell movies with the Star Wars name? To try and move the franchise beyond the Skywalker saga? To have a female lead in a poor attempt to pander to women? Was there ever a point in development where creating a cohesive story arc for the three movies was the most important aspect? It certainly doesn't come across that way. And that's the saddening thing about all this. Say what you will about the prequels, but there's at least a consistent vision throughout those movies. You still get after those three films, despite their mixed execution, what the heart of the trilogy is about. It's still about family. Kennedy has, probably not by intention, allowed for the family aspect of Star Wars to be destroyed in the sequels. None of these new characters really need each other. That's what's missing.

 

[MahvelBaby!]

Just watched force awakens in preparation

 

[Spider-Fan]

The truth is you can't. The final shot in TLJ make no sense as the ending to the second part of a three act structure. That's what's weird about the movie, it's somehow the final two acts of a trilogy crammed into one movie. I heard for the longest time people say the ending left them excited because they don't know where the story goes from here, but that's inherently the problem. If you're creating something with a three act structure you actually do want to have an idea of the direction the third act takes you. How you get there can be left a mystery, but the general path should be able to be seen. "We left our characters here with this problem left to solve." Not once in the last 2 years has there been any coherent idea from anyone about how this trilogy ends, because the characters for all intense and purpose were left with not much else to do after the second film.

The Last Jedi definitely left threads to be picked up on for the next movie. It didn't resolve everything. JJ Abrams first introduced this notion that the light is out in the universe and that we need the Jedi to come back to fix it. Then Rian Johnson questions at and show the cyclical nature of the battle between the Sith and the Jedi. Everything will just keep going in a giant cycle if it keeps going the way it was. So if the Jedi are not the hope that the Universe needs, then who is? There's one question for this film. Also now that kylo Ren is the supreme leader, what's that going to look like? I know that now we're introducing the Emperor, but that question still stands. Saying everything was restored is just wrong. The conflict has now been handed over to Rey and kylo Ren, and this film continuing from the previous one should be about how to make handle a conflict. What are they going to do that's different?

 

[godisawesome]

The truth is you can't. The final shot in TLJ make no sense as the ending to the second part of a three act structure. That's what's weird about the movie, it's somehow the final two acts of a trilogy crammed into one movie. I heard for the longest time people say the ending left them excited because they don't know where the story goes from here, but that's inherently the problem. If you're creating something with a three act structure you actually do want to have an idea of the direction the third act takes you. How you get there can be left a mystery, but the general path should be able to be seen. "We left our characters here with this problem left to solve." Not once in the last 2 years has there been any coherent idea from anyone about how this trilogy ends, because the characters for all intense and purpose were left with not much else to do after the second film.

The Last Jedi definitely left threads to be picked up on for the next movie. It didn't resolve everything. JJ Abrams first introduced this notion that the light is out in the universe and that we need the Jedi to come back to fix it. Then Rian Johnson questions at and show the cyclical nature of the battle between the Sith and the Jedi. Everything will just keep going in a giant cycle if it keeps going the way it was. So if the Jedi are not the hope that the Universe needs, then who is? There's one question for this film. Also now that kylo Ren is the supreme leader, what's that going to look like? I know that now we're introducing the Emperor, but that question still stands. Saying everything was restored is just wrong

I think a more accurate way to put it was that TLJ makes a bad Part II entry in a Trilogy, because it’s questions and plot points are the kind that demand a longer time to tackle: that instead of being a penultimate entry, it’s an episodic entry in a much longer story with an ending that almost by necessity needed to be further away then one film.

I mean, Kylo got an interesting setup as Supreme Leader... But Kylo’s not our main character.

Luke left ESB with the risk of the dark side and the revelation of who his father was.

Anakin left AOTC compromised by the dark side thanks to the Sand People Massacre and his decision to break the Jedi Code, but still dedicated at that point to fighting for the right side.

What does Rey have? An esoteric hypothetical question about what the Galaxy needs going forward? Where’s the personal investment there? Where’s the character arc? Where’s the big driving question?

Those are the kind of questions that a TLJ sequel would need to ask int he frost place, and their just too impersonal and disconnected to really do well for her. That’s at least partially why Abrams and LFL seem to have resurrected the parentage question in marketing; without it, Rey doesn’t really ave a personal story after TLJ.