****Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker - Official Thread****

I enjoyed the movies overall (wouldn't hold them up as masterpieces by a long way though) - but do agree with this...

Imagine a version where she isn't just slighted tempted by the darkside during TLJ but ends up falling to it completely, and for a time does effectively rule, with Kylo, but she actually surpasses him and starts to go almost to far (to the point where he is like "woah, okay... this is seeming a bit too evil now, even for me!" - which would tie in nicely with the reveal about who she really is if they wanted to stick with that)... Ben could then go the other way (but sooner than in the final movie) and end up ultimately either defeating her (or if killing off the female lead as a villain was too much, maybe getting through to her in the end and bringing her back to the light)... Could even have avoided having actual Palpatine show up and instead go the route that she was being controlled or influenced by his ghost/presence in some way

She could have been so much more. Just look at what Frank Herbert did with the godlike characters of Paul and Alia Atredes. Even if you discount the first part of their stories, once they achieved their status, they still struggled with the fact of what they were. Paul was a cipher of his visions, trapped into the future paths he saw, collapsing his choices down to what his prescience observed. His power controlled him. Alia was overcome by the personalities of her genetic memory, the source of her power and knowledge.

There were so many ways they could have taken Rey, and yours is just one of many suggestions that would have made her a better character and given her a better story. They never even bothered to explain why she was so perfect. They could have made her nothing but a conduit for the Force, but she could have struggled with that, searching for her own life beyond just being a hand for higher powers. People could have identified with her just for her not wanting to be trapped into a path not of her own choosing.

Any subtlety in Rey's character and story was lost because she's nothing more than a mcguffin to hang the rest of the story on. Despite the fact that she is the central character, she's dull and boring, with nothing interesting or likeable about her. Doing anything good with her was beyond the imaginations of the likes of JJ Abrams, Rian Johnson or Kathleen Kennedy. They were desperate to make Rey a female superhero for the Star Wars universe, they forgot to make her a person. Those supposed one dimensional comic book heroes in the MCU such as Iron Man, Black Widow, Thor, Captain America etc actually have a thousand times more humanity in their stories than anything that's come out of Disney Star Wars.

It's ironic that by doing such a bad job with such a high profile female lead, then claiming it's all down to "men not liking female leads" instead of admitting their own failings, Disney Star Wars has actually done women a disservice. They've "proved" that a female lead can't carry a franchise like Star Wars, and it's being blamed on the misogyny of the audience, rather than the fact that poor films do badly, whatever the gender of the lead is, and whatever IP you plaster over the front of the movie.

This was a high profile chance to do some great films that just happened to led by a great female character, and they blew it. They made the same mistakes as the likes of Doctor Who, Star Trek Discovery, Picard, etc. Agenda and visual effects were prioritised, while good stories and characters were thrown by the wayside. They need to stop letting showrunners and directors do the writing, because they've shown time and time again that those people do not have the necessary skills.
 
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I enjoyed the movies overall (wouldn't hold them up as masterpieces by a long way though) - but do agree with this...

Imagine a version where she isn't just slighted tempted by the darkside during TLJ but ends up falling to it completely, and for a time does effectively rule, with Kylo, but she actually surpasses him and starts to go almost to far (to the point where he is like "woah, okay... this is seeming a bit too evil now, even for me!" - which would tie in nicely with the reveal about who she really is if they wanted to stick with that)... Ben could then go the other way (but sooner than in the final movie) and end up ultimately either defeating her (or if killing off the female lead as a villain was too much, maybe getting through to her in the end and bringing her back to the light)... Could even have avoided having actual Palpatine show up and instead go the route that she was being controlled or influenced by his ghost/presence in some way

Sounds good, it’s utterly unforgivable that someone on an Internet forum can on the spot come up with a much stronger story.
 
Sounds good, it’s utterly unforgivable that someone on an Internet forum can on the spot come up with a much stronger story.

Agree, although it wasn't really on-the-spot - have thought about it a bit since seeing the movie... as the other poster above you says though - there's all sorts of ways they could have made Rey's character have a more interesting role in the story. I think Daisy Ridley acted well (within the confines of the material she was given) and could have done a really good job with something that had a bit more depth
 
TBF, Luke doesn't really "fail" at anything in Ep4 but as thats just the introduction to Luke within a few days I can forgive Ep7 for doing the same with Rey i.e. with no formal training Luke can fly an X-Wing expertly in space inc knowing fighter-pilot tactics apparently because he's flown a speeder on the planet surface??? just like Rey can hold her own in the Falcon or beat a wounded and "reluctant to kill her" Kylo etc. Those are forgivable in an Introduction for me.

However after Ep4 Luke then fails virtually everything in Ep5 which is a good mid-point in his transition from thinking "yay I'm great" to ""crap, I've got to work hard here as I'm failing" before the now "wiser from his failures" Luke emerges in Ep6 and even then he still has a few fails along the way (unable to mind-control Jabba, losing his calm to the Emperor etc).

Yet Rey has never followed that arc and has remained virtually failure free for the entire series (failing to get Luke to train her fully is the only thing I can think of) so, like the other poster mentioned, if she's supposed to be a "role Model" for young girls yet she never fails, then how are real life girls who do fail IRL supposed to see her as a role model when she's perfect?

At least Luke has a story people of any age/gender etc can empathise with, where people get stronger having learned the lessons from their failures and that new strength helps them overcome future obstacles.
 
One of the main challenges that I've been having as a father recently (and I'll not alone from what other parents tell me) is that my daughter won't try anything in case she fails/doesn't do it 100% awesomely first time, every time. Having had many tearful discussions with her about it, it all comes down to the pressures placed upon her by tv and films where the heroes (especially girls) can do anything perfectly without effort, training, knowledge or experience. Rey is a good (terrible) example of this but it's rife throughout most programs. Honestly, even My Little Pony (her fave a few years back) constantly showed the same trend.
I agree with the point made that letting people like JJA and RJ write (which they cannot do well) is really leading to a decrease in the quality of stories in movies.
 
This thread reminds me of the bbc review:
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20191218-film-review-star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker

lost any respect for bbc after this!!!
My favourite bit:
Another factor is that the previous episode, Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi, wittily subverted and commented on the story so far. It attempted something new and challenging – and fans have been complaining about it on the internet ever since.

I honestly thought it was written by a internet troll just to provoke readers
 
TBF, Luke doesn't really "fail" at anything in Ep4 but as thats just the introduction to Luke within a few days I can forgive Ep7 for doing the same with Rey i.e. with no formal training Luke can fly an X-Wing expertly in space inc knowing fighter-pilot tactics apparently because he's flown a speeder on the planet surface??? just like Rey can hold her own in the Falcon or beat a wounded and "reluctant to kill her" Kylo etc. Those are forgivable in an Introduction for me.

However after Ep4 Luke then fails virtually everything in Ep5 which is a good mid-point in his transition from thinking "yay I'm great" to ""crap, I've got to work hard here as I'm failing" before the now "wiser from his failures" Luke emerges in Ep6 and even then he still has a few fails along the way (unable to mind-control Jabba, losing his calm to the Emperor etc).

Yet Rey has never followed that arc and has remained virtually failure free for the entire series (failing to get Luke to train her fully is the only thing I can think of) so, like the other poster mentioned, if she's supposed to be a "role Model" for young girls yet she never fails, then how are real life girls who do fail IRL supposed to see her as a role model when she's perfect?

At least Luke has a story people of any age/gender etc can empathise with, where people get stronger having learned the lessons from their failures and that new strength helps them overcome future obstacles.
" Sir, Luke is the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim Territories." When asked could he fly......

Edit: also I might add that at T16 speeder (which he owns)is more like a fighter jet than the x34 we seen him cutting about in with Old Ben
 
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" Sir, Luke is the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim Territories." When asked could he fly......

Edit: also I might add that at T16 speeder (which he owns)is more like a fighter jet than the x34 we seen him cutting about in with Old Ben

Luke's been flying that T16 since he was young, and actually had a chance to get good at it. It even has very similar controls to the X-Wing. Right at the start he's been wanting to go to Rebel Flight School. Lucasfilm made an effort to fill in the details so they made sense and there were minimal plot holes. It's just a basic respect for the story and the audience.

He's not some junkyard waif who suddenly finds that with no experience she can fly the Millenium Falcon like a fighter though the wreckage of star destroyers for no reason other than it looks cool.
 
Luke's been flying that T16 since he was young, and actually had a chance to get good at it. It even has very similar controls to the X-Wing. Right at the start he's been wanting to go to Rebel Flight School. Lucasfilm made an effort to fill in the details so they made sense and there were minimal plot holes.

Just to pick this apart a little - The T-16 is the equivalent of a Cessna, a "trainer" aircraft that most people do their flight training in whilst the X-Wing is a military "fighter" and the equivalent of an F-15 or Typhoon. So just because both have similar controls (like a Cessna and F-15 do) it doesn't mean you can fly the military "fighter" expertly just because you've flown the "trainer" expertly. Additionally, the T-16 can't fly in Space and is limited to atmospheric travel only whilst the X-Wing is a true spacecraft so Luke has never flow anything in Space before. Also Luke has never had any military Space-based "ship vs ship" combat training which, despite being a phenomenal shot in the T-16, is a massive disadvantage to his team-mates who have had military space-combat training and know the necessary tactics of how to fight together.

I agree that Lucasfilm made a slight effort with the deleted scenes of Luke wanting to attend military flight training but the fact remains - He didn't - and that is an inconsistency which I'm more than happy to ignore because I love the film so much.

He's not some junkyard waif who suddenly finds that with no experience she can fly the Millennium Falcon like a fighter though the wreckage of star destroyers for no reason other than it looks cool.

In the same way that there are deleted scenes of Luke, Lucasfilm made some kind of effort to explain Rey's flying ability as there are mentions in the Novel of Rey being a pilot already -
  • Turning, Finn headed for the indicated area. “You ever fly this thing? Or anything like it?”
    As BB-8 looked on, she shouted back to him, “I’ve piloted all kinds of craft, but nobody’s flown this old crate in years!”
  • “That was some piloting!”
    “Thanks.” She shrugged. “I’ve been flying every kind of junk you can imagine almost since I could walk.”
We also saw how much of struggle just taking off in the Falcon was for her as she wobbled about, smashed archways etc as she figured out the controls (in both Film and Novel) -
  • Fully powered up now, it soared into the bright blue sky of Jakku—but not efficiently. Shedding tarps as it rose, it spun and careened wildly, nearly crashing back to the ground. Wrestling with the unfamiliar controls, Rey managed to level off just in time to crash into and through the town’s entry archway.
and once she figured out the controls she headed for the place she knew best, the fallen Star Destroyer, where she knew the layout intimately and could use the wreckage to her advantage (it's where the vast majority of the fight takes place).

So again whether it's Luke at Yavin, Anakin as an 11 year old destroying a Trade Federation "Donut" and surviving a space battle with zero experience (and never even sitting in that spacecraft before) or Rey flying the Falcon - In their first films, where we have limited exposure to these characters, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt regarding their skills/abilities. However, past that first film as the characters get better skilled, I want to know things about their training and both Ep5 and Ep2 give me that as we see time has passed for Luke and Anakin who have trained with a Master and yet both fail through-out the two films. However Rey is the only one we don't see spending time training with a Master and yet we see her "skills" increase exponentially without explanation and we don't see her fail. Thats a massive let down.
 
Piloting skills aside you could argue all day about that, In ANH Luke acted like a huffy spoilt kid. We got to see him progress and his personality change though his story arc. (Until Rian Johnson got his hands on him. That was not the Luke I grew up with!!!!!!)

Rey was pretty much flawless from Start to finish. Which is a shame as I kinda like Daisy
 
Rey was pretty much flawless from Start to finish. Which is a shame as I kinda like Daisy

The most minor thing they could have tweaked to really make things better was - when Rey and Kylo get into that force-tug-of-war with the transport ship and for a moment we think that she has
killed Chewie
... Have that actually not be a fake out... It would have been sad but would have provided some much needed opportunity to put the character through some hardship
 
Rey was pretty much flawless from Start to finish. Which is a shame as I kinda like Daisy

Yeap, in the rush to make her a "strong female character" they actually stripped her "character" of any attempt at development, ruining any chance that she could have any character arc and making her a Mary Sue. Due to that there's no amount of acting ability Daisy could bring to a role that badly written, even if she was the greatest actress of her generation, which she's not.
 
I've only just got around to watching this movie as I skipped the theatrical release. I am certainly glad I held out for the blu-ray. I can imagine I would just be dumbstruck in the theater trying to make sense of anything at the pace they went, and kicking myself for spending the money. Now I'm looking through this thread and trying to find anything someone had to say that was good about the movie. On first viewing, I wasn't able to find much. There were a few scenes that were pretty sweet visually, such as
the horde of Star Destroyers, the entrance of the pirates, and Palpatine's lightning show.
But otherwise I'm in agreement with just about everything I've read in this thread. Seems the only character development throughout this series was Kylo Ren, and going from someone with incredible control of the Force (the opening scene of TFA) to just another pretty-tough sabre-wielder.

Now I will be forced *sic* to watch it again and hopefully understand it a little better. Probably get some fan opinion videos in there as well. :)
 
I had another watch of this movie last night and, I have to admit, it was MUCH better with the second viewing. I enabled captioning so I could catch all the dialogue, which was especially important during the scenes with the voices in Rey's head as well as some of the fast-paced discussions that were occurring. This, in my opinion, really helped pull the movie together.

I did have a problem with some of the scenes, which just felt out of place. But overall I am now a fan. Again. The story had a solid plot and it really did move forward quite well.

Complaints:
"The dead speak!"
To me, this just seemed childish as an intro, like they had done it in all caps for a Tweet or something. "The fallen have spoken;" would have been a much better way to sell the point.
I didn't understand the "light-speed skipping" thing they pulled. Finn made it sound like it was something he had heard of but was impossible to do. The overall impression was they were jumping through alternate universes, which isn't how hyperspace works. And there was the [again, childish] feel they did in the 2005 movie version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with the Infinite Improbability Drive. Later it was again brought up by [Rose?] that the Falcon was not able to do that, as though she knew about the concept as well. I didn't quite get it.
Just a small nitpick. How was BB-8 able to keep up with her during the training course? Even after jumping a ravine he was right there with no issues. Hmm.
This is not only a fault with this movie, but with any SciFi that takes a space-worthy vehicle and brings it to a planet's surface. First, maneuverability would not be anywhere near the same in atmosphere as it would be in a vacuum, but we don't see any additional flaps deployed or other means of altering the craft so it behaves more like an airplane. Yet they always do, and that seems to also limit them to be able to only fly as fast as an airplane. Craft that are capable of traveling huge distances in space in a very short time can't seem to go over 500 MPH in atmosphere, often much less than that.
The Falcon's landing gear was not operational and they crash-landed on the planet's surface. We didn't see the landing itself, but was a crash necessary? We have seen many times before that the Falcon is able to hover and set down gently. Just because they couldn't deploy the landing gear didn't mean they needed to come in full-speed and spin out on the ground. Just, why?
Without any kind of direction-finding device, they walked up the the Death Star location and Rey was able to pinpoint the location of the Sith device by holding up the knife to the wreckage. For this to work, she would have needed to be in the exact same spot the map-maker would have stood when he created it. They didn't provide any indication this was even considered.
As mentioned many times in this thread, we were introduced to a surface-bound scavenger who already possessed incredible piloting skills. Now she's an expert sailor as well, safely navigating extreme water conditions on a craft she has probably never seen before. Is this just the Sith/Jedi in her that makes her able to do this?
Once inside the fragment of the Death Star, the door opened and closed automatically. What was the power source for this? Why would that area of the space-station have it's own power? I just found it strange.

I did think it was really cool that shot was the same section that contained Palpatine's throne. Nice touch.
Just a major groan with the rally speech overall. Independence Day and Braveheart immediately came to mind, and I'm sure there are countless other movies with the same.
When we finally see Palpatine in full reveal, he is being supported by a robotic arm connected to his body with all kinds of tubes feeding him or whatever. This reminded me of the [also unexplained] Doctor in the movie Hellbound. This may have been an intentional homage, I haven't yet checked.
Those are some of my thoughts, and if I can overlook those on next viewing I will put this movie in with the rest and enjoy it for what it is: good SciFi.
 
The most minor thing they could have tweaked to really make things better was - when Rey and Kylo get into that force-tug-of-war with the transport ship and for a moment we think that she has
killed Chewie
... Have that actually not be a fake out... It would have been sad but would have provided some much needed opportunity to put the character through some hardship

That was the exact moment I realised the trilogy was unsalvageable. For a few seconds I thought they had
killed Chewie
and honestly didn't care. One of the most loved charatcers in Star Wars was no more and it was like 'yeah, why not'. Total apathy.
 
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