Staaaaaaaar Wars'ing, Across the Universe! · 2:33am Dec 30th, 2019
Howdy folks! First and foremost, as always, Adorable Applejack:
Smugpul Jack
Now then, I finally saw Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and I wanted to lay out my thoughts, so spoilers will be present. If you haven't seen it yet, don't click past the jump.
So, I finally saw it, and...
Eh. It was alright.
I mean, I didn't hate it. But then, as we established in a previous blog, I don't really care enough about Star Wars to actively hate it. I'll say I was entertained the whole time, and I didn't feel like I wasted my money. Well, I would have felt that if I had paid for it. I bootlegged it, because fuck The Mouse. Yeah, it had problems... a lot of problems, actually, but it did do some things I liked, so let's start with those.
I liked what they did with Rey in this one. Was she still an over-powered Mary Sue? Well, yeah, but it didn't seem as overbearing in this one. They gave her more of an arc this time around. She doubted herself, she needed mentoring, and it made her feel more like a character than like an archetype. I also really liked what they did with Kylo Ren. Adam Driver is such a great actor—if you haven't yet, go see Marriage Story, a highly flawed movie with absolutely stellar performances from both Driver and Scarlett Johansson—but these movies never really gave him much to work with. Here, he got to flex his talent a bit more, and I do think this was a satisfying conclusion to his character. The other actors were great, too. Oscar Issacs and John Boyega both worked well with what they were given. SO, all in all, the characters were handled very well. Now, we get to the plot, and well...
One thing I have to say is that if nothing else, this movie highlights the failings of The Last Jedi. In The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams did what he does best and left "mystery boxes:" little dangling plot threads, hints of things to come, questions we want answered. Then Rian Johnson came along and said, "You know all those questions you had? Yeah, they don't matter. Everything you were looking forward is either answered or completely thrown out. lol forget the past!!!" And I must say that I don't totally blame Johnson. I mean, he;s not a bad film maker. I really liked Looper, and Knives Out was a lot of fun. No, the fault lies elsewhere.
As any service member or veteran will tell you, shit rolls uphill. If you're a sergeant and your soldier does some dumb shit, the First Sergeant doesn't get mad at the private. He gets mad at you. You were in charge, you were responsible for making sure the Joe knew not to lose his weapon and NVG's on a field op or marry a stripper he;s known for three hours, so the fault lies with you.
To whit, the failure lies, in my opinion, with Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy. She was the one who told Johnson, "Hey, make whatever film you want! You have complete control! Go buck wild!" And... that's what he did! He made the movie he wanted to make. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but it just seems like Kennedy never once tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Uh, you know there's one more movie, right? And that we have to wrap this all up in that one, not this one, yeah?"
This is why many have said, and I agree, that Rise of Skywalker feels like two, maybe even two and a half movies smushed together into one. This is painfully evident by the fact that the first act of this movie is like a fucking roller coaster, and not in the "Whoo, so thrilling and exciting" way. The "Holy shit can we please slow down I can taste my spleen!" kind of way. The plot moves along at such a breakneck pace that no scene has room to breathe or develop naturally. It's just big flashy explosions and then we're off to the next planet! Hell, they announced that Palpatine was back in the damn opening crawl! And that's something else: I did not believe J.J. Abrams for a second when he said that Palpatine coming back was "the plan all along." If it was, they would have dropped at least a single damn hint in either of the two previous movies that, "Hey, there's someone pulling the strings behind the scenes!" But no, the first time we were ever even teased about it was when he giggled in the first teaser for this movie. Instead, it feels more like, "Oh, shit, we're losing the fans! Uh, uh... uh, h-hey! Remember this guy?! Well he's back now! Isn't that cool?! Please don't abandon us!!"
I've heard it said that the movie feels very video gamey, and... yeah, it kinda does. I mean, the entire first act is basically, "Okay, we need to find the main thing! To do that, we're going to go to a planet and find a thing, which will lead us to another planet to find another thing, which will lead us to another planet to finally find the main thing!" What is this, Fallout?! It wouldn't surprise me. Hell, I'm sure if Todd Howard made a movie, it'd probably look like this!
Another thing that irritated me is how often they pulled a pump-fake on us. The dude from Pitch Meetings made a joke about how when Luke said, "No one's ever really gone" in the trailer, J.J. must have taken that as screenwriting advice. Three times, three fucking times they pulled the same trick on us:
"Oh, shit! Chewie's dea—oh, wait, no he's not."
"Oh, shit! Kylo Ren is dea—oh, wait, no he's not."
"Oh, shit! Rey is dea—oh, wait, no she's not."
Fuck's sake, dude! And then, there are things that are brought up that are never resolved. At one point, when he thinks they're all going to die, Finn tells Rey he has something to tell her. And then... never brought up again. I assume it was something along the lines of him being sweet on her, as that was kind of an undertone for all three movies, but still. But wait, what about him and Rose Tico? Well, about that...
One thing that greatly amused me is how many times the film seemed to go out of its way to shit on The Last Jedi, or completely disregard it. AT one point, some rando says, "Why don't we use the Holdo Maneuver?" And there is one line of dialogue that says, "No! That would never work! It was a one-in-a-million shot!" Which is basically them saying, "Hey! We don't talk about that anymore!" Going back to Rose and Finn, when they are about to leave, Rose says she can't go for some bullshit reason. Finn then, I swear to God, chucks her on the shoulder! Is there any move more "Friendzoning" than that?! Later on, Rey throws Luke's light saber into a fire, and Luke's force ghost—his Force Ghost—catches it, and he says something along the lines of, "This should be treated with more respect." Again, all but having Luke turn to the camera, flipping the bird, and saying, "Fuck you, Rian Johnson!"
Speaking of the Force, it can heal people now. Oh, sorry, it's not "Force Healing!" No, it's transferring "life force." Totally not the same thing! And it's not some one-off thing, like Obi-Won and Qui-Gon going all "Gotta go fast" in The Phantom Menace, where it happens once and is never seen again. It's a fucking plot point! Rey heals... oh, sorry, transfers life force to some giant sand worm, which was about the fifth time in this trilogy where I've said, "How does she know she can do that?" Later on, she heals Kylo Ren after running him through with her light saber. Hell, at the end of the movie, Palpatine straight-up turns into a fucking Dementor and starts sucking the life force out of she and Kylo! And then he saves Rey's life by giving her the last of his life force. Oh, and the Force can also allow non-Jedi to come back as Force ghosts, since Han Solo appears to Kylo. I don't even want to think about how many millions of dollars they had to pay to get Harrison Ford's ass back on a Star Wars set!
One of the big reveals of this movie is that Rey's parents aren't nobodies who sold her for drinking money (*cough*fuckyourianjohnson*cough*). No, she is, in fact, Palpatine's grand daughter! I'll give you a few minutes to go take a hot shower to feel clean again after imagining wrinkly, dusty-ass Palps thrusting into some woman.
And at the end of the movie, Rey returns to Tatooine to bury Luke's light saber at the moisture farm he grew up at, when some old woman walks up and asks who she is. She answers, "My name is Rey. Rey Skywalker." And... okay, I get what they were going for, I really do. They were showing that Rey is not bound by her bloodline, and that she has adopted the name of her mentor as a sign of respect and to forever surrender her ties to her own family. Except... Luke never really was her mentor, was he? I mean, all he did was be an asshole to her in the second movie. Sure, this movie shows us a bit of her bonding with Leia, but on that...
Look, it is absolutely tragic that Space Mom Carrie Fisher died before this movie was made, and I give them credit for doing what they could with what little footage of her there was to work with. However, they shouldn't have had to. Fisher died on December 27th, 2016... and The Last Jedi released on December 16th 2017. That's almost an entire year, man. I have no earthly clue why Rian Johnson didn't just kill her in that movie! I mean, was her pulling her little Mary Poppins trick that important? Hell, she wasn't even in most of the rest of the movie! With a year to work with, it would have been so easy to simply have her die in the beginning, then shoot a few interior scenes with little to no CGI of the characters mourning her, have Luke survive to train Rey in the next movie, and bam! Easy Peasy One-Two-Threesy!
Getting back to the ending, if the title of the movie is The Rise of Skywalker, wouldn't it have made a bit more narrative sense to have Rey die instead of Kylo? Think about it: she sacrifices herself to save Kylo, now Ben Solo once again after she brought him back to the Light, and have him reclaim his birthright? Rey would still have been the big hero, having defeated the Sith once and for all, and also have made the big heroic sacrifice.
Oh, and they shouldn't have kissed. That was awkward and painful for everyone involved. But speaking of kisses...
This movie made some moderate waves for featuring, "the first gay kiss in Star Wars history!" However, it ended up not being a very big deal... which I think is a big deal. When the moment came, it was barely relevant. It was two unnamed background characters, and it was very brief, which is odd. I mean, you would think a company as "progressive" and "dedicated to LGBT rights" like Disney would have featured it more prevalent. They did with Star Vs. the Forces of Evil, when they had multiple gay kisses in one scene, and each of those was front and center on camera, but this? It's like... dare I say it, it almost seems as if it was shot... so it could be very easily edited out? It wouldn't be hard. Cut about two and a half seconds of footage, splice two other shots together, and you'd never even know it was missing! Now, speaking 100%, completely and totally hypothetically here, this would be very advantageous to Disney if they wanted to, oh, I don't know... ensure wide distribution in a country of over a billion people where the oppressive government has very backwards attitudes on LGBT causes? I mean, I have no idea where such a country would even be... although for some strange reason, I am all of a sudden thinking of Winnie the Pooh...
Listing off all this stuff, I know it sounds like I hate this movie, but again, I don't! However, what I will say that is very telling is that I can't decide whether I like this one more or less than The Last Jedi. I mean look, while I disagree with most of the major decisions made with that movie, Last Jedi was at the very least a very competently made film. The pacing was good, the plot made sense, and it felt like someone's vision, because it was. Johnson wasn't forced to do pretty much anything he didn't want to do, and so he made the movie he wanted to make, and it shows.
But Rise of Skywalker? It just feels like this was Abrams, Kennedy, and Diseny CEO Bob Iger just fucking scrambling to cobble together a cohesive narrative that will at least satisfy someone. And it may not have worked. This movie had the lowest opening weekend of any of the main Disney trilogy. The Force Awakens made $247 million, The Last Jedi made $220 million, while this one "only" made $177 million. Still a great success, but it marks a trend. I have seen certain sources saying that this may be the first of the Disney trilogy to not break a billion dollars.
And then there's the critical response. Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie is sitting at 55% from critics, marking it just above The Phantom Menace for lowest ranked main line Star Wars movies. What is interesting is the fan response:The Last Jedi showed a marked difference in critic vs. fan ratings, with critics rating is at 91%, while fans had it at 43%. However, for Rise of Skywalker, the opposite is true: critics didn't like it, but the fans have it at 86%. Now, I have heard rumors about Disney possibly fudging or buying positive reviews, but I cannot verify that, so I won't speak on it too much. However, it is interesting to note that the only way to get a "verified" review on RT is to link it through your Fandango account, since RT is owned by Fandango... and Fandango's CEO is Paul Yanover... formerly of Disney. I'm not saying anything... I'm just saying.
All in all, the mainline Disney Star Wars movies have been... eh, alright. I mean, they're better than the Prequels... but that's not really saying much, is it? Rogue One is far and away the best thing Disney has done with the brand on film. I have yet to see The Mandalorian, but apparently it's the best thing to happen to Star Wars since The Clone Wars cartoon. I can confidently say I am not "done" with Star Wars. I just hope the franchise can do something new. Something fresh beyond, "Giant death ray, space wizards, laser swords, pew-pew-pew!" I just have no idea what that might be.
So, what did you think of the movie? Let me know down below! Never forget that I fucking love you all. Til next we meet stay safe, stay free, and stay metal! Jake The Army Guy out!
I.... actually didn't mind it, it felt like a conclusion. To be fair, most of the movie's problems were fixing what Last Jedi did, and rewriting to work around Carrie's unfortunate passing. There was a few writers leaving as well. I'm amazed we got a film that one can enjoy at all.
And seriously, despite whatever flaws it had that big final battle scene made up for it, you know the one. Also, the Final Order? Real subtle there JJ! No, I can't possibly know what that's an allegory for. No siree.
Also, the Mandalorian is good, but it's not the greatest thing ever as sometimes the plots can be a bit predictable. Granted, that may change once we get out of character development focused episodes and opening arcs... This is Filoni after all.
Also, Finn's secret as confirmed by Abrams himself was him being force sensitive. Glad to see that confirmed, I had this suspicion ever since he handled the lightsaber on Takodana.
This was my biggest criticism. I tell people, instead of calling it Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker (since its misleading as hell), call it:
STAR WARS: OH, WAIT!
And if you think Disney is going to buy Star Wars for a billion dollars and NOT keep milking it's udders with more movies and spin-offs until the teats fall off:
i.ytimg.com/vi/aap9P2Yeeeg/maxresdefault.jpg
It's not the Rise of Skywalker unless the true protagonist of the story is Ben Solo, grandson of Anakin Skywalker. He's not. This is the rise of Palpatine starring Rey Palpatine who utterly suceeds in being an evil Palpatine by usurping Anakin's chosen one status, exterminating the Skywalkers, then dancing on their graves by stealing their name for funsies.
I've watched a lot of videos reviewing this trainwreck. The best for me is the Critical Drinker's take. Dicktor Von Doomcock also gives a good take.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to" is not the message of The Last Jedi, despite it being in the trailer and something of a meme. It's said by the unstable bad guy. If you think that's what it's actually trying to sell you that, you may well say Revenge is actually saying "it's okay to kill people to save your family." Or that the lesson of Return of Jedi is "UNLIMITED POWER!!!" Rey actually saved the ancient Jedi texts at the end of TLJ, and in RoS has repaired Luke's lightsaber after fighting over it with Kylo. She doesn't run from it.
Actually they explicitly show it happening again at the end. At the shot of Endor, with the Ewoks, you can see that same kind of hyperspace explosive impact happening to the Star Destroyer in the sky. I would post the image here if I can, but Google doesn't turn it up; presumably because companies try to keep pictures of movie endings off the internet while they're still in theaters.
Abrams and Johnson are functional adults that know each other and have achieved their dreams as millionaire directors. I'm not sure why people picture them like feuding high school girls, and like to make up up stories where they blow millions just to spite each other.
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At first the Chewie fake out bothered me, but after thinking about it on the way home, I like how they did it. First, I’m glad they let us the audience know about it almost immediately after and didn’t try to string it along to and milk the drama. It also ends up being relevant to the plot, since in their desperation to get Chewie back, the protagonists board Kylo Ren’s ship, in what would otherwise be a pretty boneheaded plan. Plus when I did see it a second time (with my brother and dad on Christmas), I actually did see the two identical transport ships initially land on the planet, so the second one didn’t actually just come out of nowhere.
We still get two meaningful deaths in this movie. Which I normally wouldn’t spoil, if it weren’t for the fact that Jake had already revealed so in his blog, so there’s no point in me trying to preserve it in the comment section. I like how Ben died. By sacrificing his life to save the true hero, he’s finally properly following in the footsteps of his grandfather. Because saving Luke was the only part of Vader’s story that is worth emulating. I was also immediately reminded of Princess Yue and the Moon Spirit from Book One of Avatar, where the life saved was treated like a loan to be returned at the pivotal moment. I did not like the kiss between Kylo and Ray, and audibly went “goddamnit” in the theater... Even though I’m pretty sure there was a family right behind me with kids. But the fact he keels over immediately makes it all up to me. Because besides the gut punch that is for Rey, it lets me view the kiss in the sense of “I’m thrilled to be alive, thanks!” Not as “we’re a functional couple.” Which they’re not.
And having Ben’s body at the exact same time as Leia’s? That’s just fucking perfection. So much said without dialogue, or even the characters having to be on screen and acting
And that leads to the other significant death, Leia. Which unfortunately I don’t see a lot of people talking about, despite it being a really beautiful scene, and couples well with Kylo‘s arc. I guess people just viewed that as kind of banal, since we all knew it was coming since Kerry Fisher died. The real question most people had was whether it would be in film 2 or 3 of the trilogy.
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I agree with everything you said. I didn't hate the movie by any stretch.
When people ask me "Is it good?" I answer: It depends on who is watching it.
Besides the obvious "art is subjective" business, what I mean by that is the RoS fall in the uncanny valley of Star Wars movies.
If you've never seen a star wars movie before and you go to watch this without any basis to compare it to, then it's actually pretty alright for a movie to maybe have a couple beers and some popcorn with, and not think about it too much.
But if you've seen all the other movies and read the books and comics, and know the lore, then instead of seeing all the good parts, that parts that stick out to you are all the imperfections. (Like one of those Japanese robots that are almost life-like, but there's just something off about them that makes you feel uncomfortable.)
I walked away from RoS, not hating it, actually liking if a good deal for all the merits listed by you and OP, but I actually had a thought of, "I can't believe that was a Star Wars movie though."
Maybe I do need to see it a second time, as you did, and give it a more objective approach, now that the sensational reaction has passed for me.
Eh at this point I'm waiting for them to do something new with Star Wars it was cool to see all the old actors the first time in The Force Awakens and Rogue One was great as well but after that, I lost interest in it.
Honestly, I thought this movie was a blast just for how fucking ridiculous it was. The level of contrivances and bullshit the plot needed to pull out to function at all was just breathtaking.
Which is sort of the problem TLJ had, since that movie's plot is a bit of a clusterfuck, but maybe since I went inti ROS expecting it to be bad, I was in a better mindset? Not sure.
I do agree with a lot of what you said, though. I should have been bloody ecstatic if Rey had died to save Kylo, because at least then she might have had something that wasn't just her riding off the good points of the previous trilogy.
Or if she'd taken the name Palpatine instead of Skywalker, at least.
One of the biggest complaints I had of The Last Jedi was the pacing. It was like trying to watch TV when the wife has the remote, and keeps changing channels and mucking with the volume. The less big but still annoying as heck problem was the constant pump-fakes. This is going to happen... but wait! Now something totally different happens! And now something else that nobody expected happens! And we switch to another scene where something totally unexpected happens again!
Rey being a Mary Sue didn't help.
Kylo Ren's whole character is about as ridiculous as Rey's, honestly. His redemption was amazingly absurd.
"I'm sorry ghost dad, for stabbing you in the chest, deliberately, of my own free will, knowing I was murdering my own father for entirely selfish reasons and I have done nothing to prove I am in any way sane enough to consciously be a good person again."
"It's okay, kid. I got paid a lot of money just to show up. You be good now."
"Okay."
And then Reylo saved Star Wars.