Conscious that some people have now seen the film and some have not, so like the last film, its best to have a spoiler and non spoiler thread.

This one is for those who have seen the film or don't mind learning the film content.

I've just got back from it and....

I was a little disappointed.

A great fun action movie, but as a saga arc, I felt it was weak.

For starters, JJ retconed all the major points in The Last Jedi. It almost felt like he was having a dig at Ryan Johnson. Particularly when Luke says to Rey (as she's about to toss the lightsaber) 'A Lightsaber should be treated with respect!'.

The whole Palpatine story felt shoehorned in to create a bad guy, with Snoke having been snuffed out, and they made no real attempt to tie the whole saga plot together, just a few vague references. It was all a bit mythical and box ticking.

I thought they handled Leia well, Oscar Issac was the star, and they really did well utilizing 3PO this time around. I also thought the ending was done well.

Towards the end, it just had that de ja vue of Return of The Jedi.

It's too early to tell where I would rank it, but I think it will end up in lower end.

To be fair to JJ, Ryan Johnson left him with major headaches to solve and I don't think it was salvageable. What is clear to me is that the sequel trilogy seems to have really suffered from a lack of overarching plan across the 3. They felt like 3 attempts, rather than a continuous story.

Whether you liked The Last Jedi or not, it snuffed out the trilogy early, leaving JJ to somehow create new drama out of collapsed plot lines. I don't think he pulled it off.

[Edited 12/18/19 19:39pm]

Stickyfied

I agree with almost everyhing you said, especially the missing overall plan and story arc

I really wanted to like this, and I slept over it for a night but my first impression didn´t improve since yesterday I´m afraid...

for the longest time I hoped this would be a decent save after the Rian clusterfuck desaster, but it was too little too late

he lost me during the last act and last 30 minutes or so (basically an overblown ROTJ reboot sequence), too much overkill actionwise and not enough background info or explanation (like Lando coming to the rescue out of the blue with 100 trillion billion spaceships within a few hours or rather minutes WTF) and especially no details on Palpatines survival, children and family, Snoke-puppet-farming (??) and so on...

of course the Palpatine problem can be blamed on Rian too, cause he killed off the main villian in Ep8 , and I'm 100% sure that the original JJ outline had Snoke (=probably Plagueis?) in the last showdown, and that Palpatine was never planned to reappear (basically confirmed by Ian McDiarmid who just got his call from JJ what... a month ago or so? LOL). but my biggest complaint as expected after the trailers: it ruins the original trilogy and ROTJ and Vader doing his sacrifice. bullshit.

many open plotpoints from Ep7 were still left open, Kinghts of Ren are just "there" and that was it... no background either, not even dialouge. and what is Maz Kanatas "good story for another time" about Lukes lightsaber? when is another time?? Lor San Tekka anyone? Luke hiding from everyone, yet leaving a map?
sure maybe most of this is not essential to the big picture, but then why the fuck pitch those things in the first place, just to drop it?

in the end lots of (sometimes quite entertaining) fan service over solid storytelling. Han's "I know" or Chewie getting his medal finally, hehehe
but I will let have to sink this in further .

certainly better than TLJ and also certainly behind TFA.

maybe JJ about JJ sums it up best: I know how to begin a story. I've never been good at endings.

oh, and Kathleen Kennedy is an incompent cunt for fucking up the biggest franchise in cinematic history

[Edited 12/19/19 1:59am]

BombSquad said:

I agree with almost everyhing you said, especially the missing overall plan and story arc

I really wanted to like this, and I slept over it for a night but my first impression didn´t improve since yesterday I´m afraid...

for the longest time I hoped this would be a decent save after the Rian clusterfuck desaster, but it was too little too late

he lost me during the last act and last 30 minutes or so (basically an overblown ROTJ reboot sequence), too much overkill actionwise and not enough background info or explanation (like Lando coming to the rescue out of the blue with 100 trillion billion spaceships within a few hours or rather minutes WTF) and especially no details on Palpatines survival, children and family, Snoke-puppet-farming (??) and so on...

of course the Palpatine problem can be blamed on Rian too, cause he killed off the main villian in Ep8 , and I'm 100% sure that the original JJ outline had Snoke (=probably Plagueis?) in the last showdown, and that Palpatine was never planned to reappear (basically confirmed by Ian McDiarmid who just got his call from JJ what... a month ago or so? LOL). but my biggest complaint as expected after the trailers: it ruins the original trilogy and ROTJ and Vader doing his sacrifice. bullshit.

many open plotpoints from Ep7 were still left open, Kinghts of Ren are just "there" and that was it... no background either, not even dialouge. and what is Maz Kanatas "good story for another time" about Lukes lightsaber? when is another time?? Lor San Tekka anyone? Luke hiding from everyone, yet leaving a map?
sure maybe most of this is not essential to the big picture, but then why the fuck pitch those things in the first place, just to drop it?

in the end lots of (sometimes quite entertaining) fan service over solid storytelling. Han's "I know" or Chewie getting his medal finally, hehehe
but I will let have to sink this in further .

certainly better than TLJ and also certainly behind TFA.

maybe JJ about JJ sums it up best: I know how to begin a story. I've never been good at endings.

oh, and Kathleen Kennedy is an incompent cunt for fucking up the biggest franchise in cinematic history

[Edited 12/19/19 1:59am]

Yeah. A fucking scavengerhunt to find Luke (why? when he wants to be left alone), another scavengerhunt to find the fucking Imperator (why 30+ years later?). All of these plot points are just silly. This trilogy was a waste of time from the getgo and does nothing than to undermine everything that came before. Why plan a trilogy, but not having an overarching story for all 3 movies? What madness has to go on that you give the key to director of the second movie, but don't tell him where he has to drive and at which rest stops he has to pass along the way, so the whole thing doesn't fall flat on it's face? Ep. 8 was not great, but 9 was even worth. One force projection and plot hole too many.

Read the spoiler free reviews at lunch (which have been pretty average) so wasn't expecting much, but actually enjoyed it. It was good, not great, but fun.

Bad Points:

- The "humour" was lame and too forced.

- A bit lazy falling back on Palpatine again as the ultimate villain. Brushed past how he came back in 5 seconds (I have powers so I can't die?...ok then) and yet we're meant to believe Rey killed him for good? ... hmmm

- That Kylo and Rey kiss ... eugh, no, please don't! Horrible moment.

- What was going on with Finn? What did he want to tell Rey, and did or didn't he have force powers?

- Took zero risks with the story.

- "And I ... am all the Jedi" ... sorry, Tony Stark already nabbed that one.

- The flashback training Leia looked horrendous (Luke looked good though to be fair)

- I've tried to enjoy her performances, but Daisy Ridley isn't a very good actress. Her delivery reminds me of Emma Watson in the first couple of Harry Potter films ... touch of the children's acting school about it all.

Good Points:

- Actually enjoyed Kylo/Ben's turn back to the good side ... didn't think they could pull it off but it worked for me.

- Nice to see John Williams finally get a blink and miss it cameo, and his soundtrack work was brilliant as always.

- The scenes on the fallen / water logged Death Star II were great.

- Good to see Lando back.

- New characters were pretty good despite getting very little time to make an impression

- Lazy as it was to use Palpatine again he was genuinely creepy, and had a nice Hellraiser II design.

- It was pandering and blatant fan service but the cameos by all the old characters were undeniably cool. Nice to see Leia / Carrie Fisher get a fitting tribute.

[Edited 12/19/19 13:58pm]

I've had 24 hours to relect on it and it's feels worse.

The plot had more holes than a swiss cheese.

For example; why did all the first order ships drop out of the sky around the galaxy (eg Cloud City)? They were not part of The Final Order fleet so not under Palpatines control.

How was Luke's X-wing complete, when he'd already robbed it of parts for the Jedi village, like the door chewie breaks?

Rey couldn't deflect a targeting droid, but could deflect all the Sith lighting in the universe 2 hours later?

What did Finn want to say to Rey?

The force is now volume based? I though it was in everything.

Why didn't Rey vanish when she died?

If Snoke is manufactured, why make him knackered?

Why is the Holdo move 'one in a million'?

Surely Palpatine isn't dead, because they've already proved he has 'unnatural powers'.

Why to the bad guys keep inventing fleets and weapons with a glaring single weak spot??

lust said:

You don’t think you’re overthinking it a bit?

Yes, but as die hard from 1977, that's what we do!

OK, I raised some very picky points (there are 100's of others), but some of the fundimentals in this one make it a mess.

The whole saga was supposed to be about the fall and redemption of Annakin Skywalker; bringing balance to the force.

With one new film, the Skywalkers are irrelivent. There was only Palpatines all along. And we don't even learn how the dead one came back. They don't even address how they retconned the finale of the first six films!

That is terrible story writing.

SquirrelMeat said:

lust said:

SquirrelMeat said:

Yes, but as die hard from 1977, that's what we do!

OK, I raised some very picky points (there are 100's of others), but some of the fundimentals in this one make it a mess.

The whole saga was supposed to be about the fall and redemption of Annakin Skywalker; bringing balance to the force.

With one new film, the Skywalkers are irrelivent. There was only Palpatines all along. And we don't even learn how the dead one came back. They don't even address how they retconned the finale of the first six films!

That is terrible story writing.

It’s still more about Skywalker to me with more emphasis now on the villain being Palpatine all the way through. The emphasis on it being Anakin’s story is a post prequel revisionist position don’t you think? I suppose Rey could have been a Skywalker but that would have been too predictable and the fact that the main arc of the sequel trilogy was the conflict between Rey and Kylo Ren keeps it well in t he realm of the Skywalker saga. His redemption being key to the story.

If you look at the original trilogy, yes, it wasn't about Anakin's redemption, but his redemption did close the arc.

The prequels gave is a new perspective, that Anakin's purpose was bigger, and that he was possibly the 'chosen one' to bring balance to the force. In six films, the story writing made sense. Anakin was redeemed, but Luke's part in the story was his reason for changing.

With the new sequels, they always had a problem. If balance had already been achieved, where do you go?

You either say 'actually, balance hadn't been achieved' or, you create a new threat to unbalance things.

This is where the Disney lack of planning comes in. The Force Awakens set things up to suggest things are becoming unbalanced again. But when The Last Jedi killed off most of the key story threads, JJ had to fall back on nostalgia and moved to the 'it was never really over' mode.

In doing so, he removed the relevance what the Skywalker story line was all about.

Couple that with the many plot holes (the biggest being why did all the ships around the galaxy drop out of the sky?), it shows that it was written on the hoof and there was a complete lack of a plan.


This was damage control, and really, the final movie would have been better as the whole sequel trilogy over three films, rather than cramped into one to gloss over poor planning.

What did the sequel trilogy give us? Some new younger characters, but exactly the same result. So plenty of box office at the expense of the impact of the original trilogy.

[Edited 12/19/19 19:15pm]

While Anakin and Luke are gone, Palpatine is still there, handling some internal family issues.... Duh!

This renders almost the whole Skywalker events irrelvant to the outcome. If they never existed, so what? Or Luke could just have decided to rebuild Uncle Owens farm...

It's basically like Indiana Jones is irrelevant to the outcome in Raides of the Lost Ark

We can just accept that, ignore it and still enjoy the film. but it sucks.

lust said:

Could it be that a lot of the problems that you’re citing are actually the fault of George Lucas with the overblown prequel trilogies. He took a much loved fun space opera and expanded it with prophesies and midichloriens and, not to mention boring galactic politics and trade embargoes. Aren’t the new lot just fun like t the originals?

I much prefer Ep7 over the prequels, and even Ep9, look & feel is just way more SW than Ep1-3, even the flow of events is better in the sequels

a fun thing script-wise, many things from the prequels Lucas already planned in '77, like Midichlorians or the trade laws. that does not make it much better, it's just interesting to know

https://www.youtube.com/w...cvX0ewUYuM

[Edited 12/20/19 0:04am]

lust said:

SquirrelMeat said:

Yes, but as die hard from 1977, that's what we do!

OK, I raised some very picky points (there are 100's of others), but some of the fundimentals in this one make it a mess.

The whole saga was supposed to be about the fall and redemption of Annakin Skywalker; bringing balance to the force.

With one new film, the Skywalkers are irrelivent. There was only Palpatines all along. And we don't even learn how the dead one came back. They don't even address how they retconned the finale of the first six films!

That is terrible story writing.

It’s still more about Skywalker to me with more emphasis now on the villain being Palpatine all the way through. The emphasis on it being Anakin’s story is a post prequel revisionist position don’t you think? I suppose Rey could have been a Skywalker but that would have been too predictable and the fact that the main arc of the sequel trilogy was the conflict between Rey and Kylo Ren keeps it well in t he realm of the Skywalker saga. His redemption being key to the story.

But why? He killed his father and kept on going. At that point a character is beyond redemption. And really, what's the motivation for suddenly going light? He has no problem killing his father, comes close to killing his mother, but when it comes to Mary Sue, uhm, Rey, that pushes it too far.

SquirrelMeat said:

What did the sequel trilogy give us? Some new younger characters, but exactly the same result. So plenty of box office at the expense of the impact of the original trilogy.

[Edited 12/19/19 19:15pm]

Yeah. All it did was undo the OT and gave us the same with new names and new characters, but just in bad. A totally pointless excercise. Unless you're a Disney shareholder.

lust said:

Could it be that a lot of the problems that you’re citing are actually the fault of George Lucas with the overblown prequel trilogies. He took a much loved fun space opera and expanded it with prophesies and midichloriens and, not to mention boring galactic politics and trade embargoes. Aren’t the new lot just fun like t the originals?

I take the PT, with all it's problems, over this new trilogy any time. And really, I can't take anyone serious who prefers this trilogy over the PT trilogy.

PatrickS77 said:

PatrickS77 said:

lust said:

PatrickS77 said:

But why? He killed his father and kept on going. At that point a character is beyond redemption. And really, what's the motivation for suddenly going light? He has no problem killing his father, comes close to killing his mother, but when it comes to Mary Sue, uhm, Rey, that pushes it too far.

Nah. Anakin slaughtered a group of 6 year olds in close combat.

Fuck the children,. They are not important to him. They are not his parents.

lust said:

PatrickS77 said:

I take the PT, with all it's problems, over this new trilogy any time. And really, I can't take anyone serious who prefers this trilogy over the PT trilogy.

The PT was largely an abomination. However. If you prefer it then that’s fine. I’m prepared to take you seriously in voicing your opinion.

Right, but the crap we've gotten now, isn't. Whatever.

PatrickS77 said:

PatrickS77 said:

I am going on sunday to see it ... so I wont read all the spoilers .... but I will say

I am alittle surprised how much everyone attacks Rian Johnsons work ....

when it came out ... it was getting great reviews I thought and ... after I saw that one

I said it was bold .... and surprising ...

comparing that to JJ abrams which essentially was a re tread .... it sounds to me that the

last one has some re tread stuff in it too ... but again I dont want to get too engrossed into

a debate before seeing this last one .

I will say I didnt like that Palpatine is in it .... maybe he could be included but have it actually

be darth plageous as a big surprise or something similar .... just my addition ...

Had too much blue in the color grade. they finally got the opening orchestral hit right, but I almost suspect they were playing the opening from Star Wars 1977 spliced in.

Will have to see it again to really evaluate the story, but there were strong moments and weak moments (mostly weak comedic moments).

I do think Harry Potter stole the thunder of this narrative. Know what I mean?

I never minded the prequels. They are far inferior to the originals, but they have a charm of their own. I actually like the plot of the prequels, I just felt the execution was poor; too CG dependent, bad dialog no one on Georges shoulder to tell him when he got things wrong.

That said, they had a clear plot and purpose, with an arc that played out over the three films and importantly, added to the narrative of a wider saga.

The lack of arc in the sequels is why it fails in my opinion. They look terrific, are better made than the first 6, but serve no purpose other than 'three more films'. Disney chucked out Georges 70 page draft treatment and went with fan fiction. Worse still, they let two story tellers plan seperate visions almost independently and then tried to stitch them together.

Like I said earlier, if you boil it all down, the sequels deliver nothing in the saga narrative. They wrap it up exactly the same way as Return of the Jedi.

I blame Disney not JJ or Ryan for this. The annoying thing it, even after Ryan threw them a curveball with The Last Jedi, they had a chance to keep it on track. Carrie died 11 months before The Last Jedi opened and they had all the footage they needed to adapt the final cut they would not have tied their hands. All they needed to do was kill Leia off and keep Luke for the third film.

An easy edit would have either killed Leia when she was sucked onto space, or better in my opinion, editted it so she replaced Holdo, sacrificing herself; ramming snokes ship to save the rebellion she loved. Follow that with Luke simply not fading away and you have have a living main cast OT actor available for the finale.

Instead, they handed JJ a main character where the actress had died, and no arc protagonist.

If the rumours are to be believed, when JJ took on the new film, he turned to George Lucas and they began work on a plot where 'The Son of Mortis' was behind Snoke, a Sith character George himself created for The Clone Wars animated series. This involved the Sith history and the dagger of Mortis. Matt Smith was rumoured to play the son.

But Disney, fearful of another backlash after The Last Jedi, insisted on closer ties to the original trilogy and JJ abandoned the work with George Lucas.

It's interesting that Lucas did not turn up to the premiere of Rise of Skywalker. He was at the previous two, but was nowhere to be seen at the end of 'his' whole saga.

lust said:

Imagine getting hold of George’s 70 page draft! Would love to know what that story was. Now that the dust has settled after a few days since seeing it, and listening to some of the main fan podcasts, I live it even more. Can’t wait to see it again.

He suggested it focused on the grand children and the Force at a micro (Midi-chlorian) level. (could be a car crash! ). Interestingly, despite the fans backlash over how Luke was portrayed in The Last Jedi, Lucas's own notes had him as a recluse hidden away.

I'm going again with the family on Tuesday. I'm still hoping to enjoy it, as an action movie, now I know they have tossed aside logic, reason and legacy!

SquirrelMeat said: