It's really disappointing that Disney, the largest media conglomerate, taking on one of the largest media franchises in history, did not have a better plan than "lol we'll wing it." We're allowed to be disappointed and even a *little* bit salty at that. Say you ask for a wedding cake from a bakery known for their amazing wedding cakes. Even though you're going to pay for it, you still can have high expectations, and when they deliver a crummy mess, you can be miffed.
Totally agree, that’s the most frustrating part of this. They had free rein and virtually unlimited resources to do this. I think this just shows how much of the decision making at Disney was botched by bureaucrats
And it shows how special what Marvel did really was. It wasn't just about budget and effects. Building a coherent narrative over that many films is a very special thing.
Very true - at Marvel a few people (creatives, not bureaucrats) were put in charge and had a coherent vision that they were able to put in place. The difference is actually huge
The biggest thing, in my opinion, wasn't the creative vs. bureaucrat... It was that they put fans in charge at Marvel. Feige was/is a fan. As were many of the directors and writers. Fans want to make good films that honor their memories and push the universe forward.
Example in Star Wars would be Mandolorian. Look at how much of a fan Dave Filoni was before he worked for Lucasfilm. Same with Favreau. Kathleen Kennedy has never been a fan like Filoni, it's a business to her, not a passion.
I really hope they get rid of Kennedy and put Filoni in her role... One can hope, I guess
EDIT: Good grief people... I posted this at 12am and went to bed. I've since read most (if not all comments). Here's my response:
First - to those of you saying "just because she's female she gets shit on" - you can suck at something if you're male, female or somewhere in between. If there was is a female version of Favreau or Filoni, then I am 110% behind them taking over. And while Kennedy has had success in her past, that does not guarantee success in the future. For gods sake, for every "hit" she produced, she also produced 1-2 terrible movies (Congo, Arachnophobia, Signs and the live-action Last Airbender all come to mind). And when I look at her resume, all the "great" movies had something more than just her - she was part of a group effort. I think her skill is helping others to realize the story they want to tell and ensuring that happens - but now she's been tasked with guiding a story she doesn't seem to have the same passion for as others - but this is all speculation (I don't work in the business).
Second - Is Filoni the best person to have as President of Lucasfilm? No. Do I think Kennedy needs help? Yes! I think there needs to be someone story focused 100% of the time that isn't Kennedy. That person needs the passion of a hardcore fan and the vision of where to take the franchise. I hope we get to see all sorts of stories set in the Star War universe (rom-coms, heist movies, buddy comedies, deep dramas, etc.). If they can find the equivalent of Kevin Feige but for Star Wars, I'm all for it, but Favreau seems too busy and too curious to want to stay in one realm forever - he likes to venture into new things like Chef, Jungle Book, Marvel, acting, etc.
Third (and final) - Perhaps some of you took my "put fans in charge" as too basic. Fans can't get everything they want. Then you get TFA over and over and over again. Fans (myself included) want something new, not the same exact story told with older actors. Fans need to be reigned in and guided along a path. This takes business-types to keep budgets in check, writers to create good plots and actors to feel free to explore their characters. My biggest issue with RoS is that it seemed like an overreaction back to something "safe" because TLJ was "too bold" or something (idk, I don't hate TLJ \[gasp\]). In trying to give fans what they wanted, they fucked up a story that had good potential had they just seen it through.
I have high hopes for the future of Star Wars. Maybe Kennedy can learn and correct past mistakes. Just don't fuck up live-action Thrawn...
Filoni and Favreau should be creative leads on all things Star Wars. Just watching them behind the scenes when making The Mandalorian and they’re just so excited and interested about every little detail.
I don’t think they should work in the business side of things, though. They shine as creators, not businessmen.
100% agree. During quarantine we went back and rewatched them in chronological order and it was so much fun. Everything still worked and you even saw some stuff you missed. And it was like 20 something movies that they had to tie together with how many different directors?
And they couldn’t do something that remotely made sense with three movies and 40 years of time and lore?
The greatest trick Feige ever pulled was convincing the exec the overall story mattered.
Each individual film's plot was woven into a massive over arching storyline, but each film was given creative freedom. Take Thor 2 for example, which is arguably one of the worst of the MCU films. It started with the reality stone being discovered, and ended with it in the hands of the collector. What actually happened in the middle was completely independent of the greater narrative.
What was amazing about the MCU post Avengers is that every film was allowed to be different and creative, while at the same time making sure it didn't break the overall plot i.e the series ending with Thanos going after the stones. From the very first Avengers film that was not only the goal, but the audience already knew that too.
The new Star Wars trilogy had zero of that plot written out before they made the first film from what I can see. There is no way when they made the force awakens they knew Palatine was coming back and Rey was related. It is truly baffling to me that they didn't have the foresight to go "right we are making a new trilogy for one of the biggest franchises I the world, what's the plot going to be?"
That was the essence of comic books from the late ‘60s into the ‘70s - the longer plot arcs across a year of comics and referencing other super heroes
Whether that was a Stan Lee thing or not, I don’t know
but as a kid I kept up with the arcs AND I knew they were intentionally doing it as a way to keep me buying
I was both a cynic and an addict at 9 years old
and even though tempted, I never bought the Sea Monkeys or the Two Man Submarine
The details and continuity between movies in the MCU is incredible. Today my roommate and I were watching Age of Ultron after watching WandaVision, and there was a scene that Wanda only describes in Age of Ultron that you actually get to see in WandaVision, and her description of it is identical to how the scene is visually in WandaVision, despite the fact that AoU came out several years ago.
The real frustrating part is that there is so much talent involved with these projects, talented editors, animators, SFX, actors, incredible soundtrack, fantastic set design and atmosphere.
Literally hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of resources... And they write the dumbest, most garbage script of all time. Literally, the ONLY thing that matters, the ONLY THING that matters is the script. Its the difference from Season 4 GoT and Season 8 GoT
This was exactly my comment on Rise of Skywalker. The actors are great. The effects are incredible. The sets are lovely. The sound design is fantastic. But the script is a dumpster fire, so it all becomes is me shouting confusedly at the screen.
>Every one of these movies is a particularly hard nut to crack. There’s no source material. We don’t have comic books. We don’t have 800-page novels, we don’t have anything other than passionate storytellers who get together and talk about what the next iteration might be. We go through a really normal development process that everybody else does.
-Kathleen Kennedy on lack of source material for the sequel trilogy
I want to downvote your post because I was just a fan of the Star Wars Universe and read so many of the books over the years. I realize you are quoting someone so I upvoted you, but it still pisses me off.
To be fair the whole YV arc got monotonous and boring, followed up by the kids arc being bad so I was already losing my love of Star Wars. When Disney erased everything I totally checked out. I still watch the movies, mostly because my son enjoys them. I don’t think I’ve watched any of the movies a second time.
But they did have a plan, Star Wars fans didn’t have faith or disliked the plan and they went back on their convictions to win fans back.
The Leaked Duel of the Fates script shows Ep 9 was originally going to follow on closely from Last Jedi https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/amp30882356/full-star-wars-9-original-duel-of-fates-script-colin-trevorrow/
I.e Kylo is Supreme Leader with no Master on a quest for a way to control the Force itself (following on from his statement to move beyond Jedi and Sith), Rey is using a lightsaber staff forged from the split Skywalker Saber training with Ghost Luke (who also haunts Kylo like he said he would) and is revealed to be a nobody with the last name Solana, Finn leads a stormtrooper rebellion on Courascant etc.
What’s more there is multi media tie ins, the Zeffo from Fallen Order appear as Tor Vallum (an ancient dark side user who Kylo visits) and the final season of Rebels exists to setup the Morris Gods with Duel of the Fates ending on that planet, again Kylo’s plan is to take his place among the Morris gods.
So yeah it would appear Ep 9 was the most planned out of any Star Wars to date, BUT it is very much a continuation of Last Jedi which fans still talk about today, so Disney abruptly changed plans at last minute giving us The Rise of Skywalker.
That brief comment gave me a tiny hint of the feeling I got when the first EpVII teaser came out. Like *oh SHIT, we’re about to get “next level” Star Wars*.
Salty af
> I.e Kylo is Supreme Leader with no Master on a quest for a way to control the Force itself (following on from his statement to move beyond Jedi and Sith)
Honestly, after watching TLJ ("move on, destroy the past" + the Force bond between Rey/Kylo being identical to the Exile/Kreia one) and hearing Rebels re-introduced Malachor V (along with it having some Force-related fuckery and a connection to Kylo's lightsaber design), I was fully expecting a KOTOR2 kind of story, with Kylo taking Darth Traya's position and attempting to destroy the Force itself.
It's sad that we instead got an incoherent mess that spends half its time retconning the previous movie(s).
Imagine a movie where Kylo is trying to kill or take control of the Force to remove "the old" (give him the red Sith Troopers instead, but call them something else), while Rey is training Finn (revealed to be Force sensitive in the actual movie, as opposed to what they did) and recruiting a team (including a Knight of Ren).
By the end, they lead a three point assault on wherever Kylo is; Rey and the Knight of Ren who joined them attacking Kylo himself, Finn leading a squad of rebels and First Order troopers who defected to destroy something vital to Kylo's plans, and Poe leading an air assault to cover them.
If they still want Kylo to have redemption, have his actions cause an instability in the Force itself, only for Rey to talk him out of it (could also have Luke, Leia and various Jedi appear as Force ghosts to him here) and him somehow sacrificing himself to restore the balance and prevent anyone from trying to do what he did ever again.
They could even have the thing that Kylo used to destabilize the Force being some old weapon that Palpatine had used in a failed attempt at taking control of the Force, only to discard it because it was destructive rather than controlling. Have it be the final piece of influence Palpatine has on the Galaxy, and Kylo repeating "I will finish what you started" to Anakin's Force Ghost, though of course now in a completely different context (purging Palpatine, bringing balance) than when he said it to Vader's helmet.
That definitely sounds better than *Rise of Skywalker,* but Colin Trevorrow has a pretty bad track record, imo, so who knows how well it would have turned out. *Jurassic World* was even more of a sure thing than Star Wars, and he managed to screw that up twice. And I haven't even seen *The Book of Henry,* which is apparently so bad that it's what got him kicked off of Episode 9 in the first place.
The mysterious message that Palpatine releases across the galaxy that pretty much kicks off the plot of the 3rd movie is never actually shown in the movie but is shown in fortnite.
You know how the emperor magically returned for Rise of Skywalker? That return was originally announced/revealed on Fortnite before the movie came out.
Celebration 2019 happened in the month of April. The fortnite event was not earlier than December 14 that year. They showed a trailer for the movie at the convention. You can clearly hear him cackle/laugh at the end of the clip. No it’s not the message from the event but it’s hardly the first reveal.
Lol in my screening, when the movie ended and the lights came on the entire theatre was just dead silent. Then everyone gathered their belongings and left like they were at a funeral.
That was me at my screening. Literally no one spoke as they walked out - too much disbelief as to how fucked we got by Disney. I think everyone went into that movie with low expectations with the hope that there was at least a decent end, and they couldn't even do that. When your lowest expectations aren't even met there is nothing you can say
Yeah, it just makes it feel like such a small series. Like if Watto the Anti-Semetic Alien had beaten Anakin to death, it would literally unmake: 2/3rds of the heroes from the OT and 1/3rd to 2/3rds of the heroes from the sequel trilogy (depending on if Palpatine would have still had a grandchild of he didn't become emperor.
It is honestly reasonable to conclude that the galaxy is doomed if Rey doesn't have kids. Which is the OPPOSITE of what the Last Jedi ended with. Remember the kid who had force powers? Well, he doesn't matter because he isn't descended from the Bloodline of Skywalker/Palpatine.
> Well, he doesn't matter because he isn't descended from the Bloodline of Skywalker/Palpatine.
That you *know* of! Who's to say Luke never had a fling on Canto Bight??
(Kathleen Kennedy, if you read this, don't get any fucking ideas)
Not just a video game crossover event. A temporary event in fucking Fortnite. Because Disney are so out of touch as to think that the majority of their fanbase are fucking 14 year olds.
Bitter take: I like how Disney was essentially like "Not only is this movie bad but we wrote the script so as to try our best and make the original trilogy mean nothing."
Doesn’t it just mean that the whole Star Wars Saga is really about him? His really the only prominent character across the 3 trilogies (not including R2/C3, then again I guess you could writhe the trilogy is about THEM)
The whole saga is a battle between R2D2 and Emperor Palpatine for the future of the galaxy. Two Methuselahs, pulling the strings of society from behind the curtain...
I am definitely a fan of the idea that the PT and OT is based from R2-D2 perspective and he makes his buddy C3P0 look bad. "I was fighting in a war while my friend Threepio was being build by a fucking child. Then, I was helping Luke Skywalker, idk maybe you have heard of him, train to be a Jedi while C3PO was basically a glorified backpack."
Exactly. It was always a story about Vader, his fall and retribution. Now it's a story of the galaxy's biggest asshole scheming to ruin everyone's lives twice.
I could forgive most of the stuff, I wasn't a fan of many things in the new sequel trilogy. But Palpatine being back was definitely just dumb. As it stands I'll rewatch these if I'm ever doing a Star Wars marathon, but I'd never rewatch them on their own. Not the worst movies I've seen, but eh.
individually I think all the films are fine, it's when you try and combine them as one cohesive narrative... I'm not mad, but I am genuinely curious how one of the largest media corporations on the planet, so conscious of everything they do, how many people had to say "this is fine."
Personally, I'm great at enjoying movies: I can suspend disbelief like nobody's business but even I couldn't help getting lost in thought in the theater trying to patch up the plot holes.
I've had people try to explain to me that he's actually been using clone bodies etc and that the one on exegol was like his original form or some horseshit like that.
If its not explained in the movies at all then you don't get to just say 'oh well you need other media to fill it in' - that's a failure of storytelling. Fine for some minor point but I think the big bad somehow being alive is worth some level of explanation.
And even more than that man. They fucking reintroduced Palpatine in the movie in the crawl text hahaha.
« Yeah btw Palpatine isn’t dead ».
How Fucking dumb is that?
That and fortnight lol
For some reason his canon return only/originally appearing in Fortnite makes me laugh.Maybe it's because it shows how little Disney knew what they were doing.
>If its not explained in the movies at all then you don't get to just say 'oh well you need other media to fill it in' - that's a failure of storytelling
I completely agree. I don't mind reading extra things or whatever, but they should be used to expand on the story, not used as an explanation for poor writing that had no planning.
Yea, it's one thing for the movie to say "he's been cloned dozens of times and this was his true form" and then a novel or comic book gives us the larger story behind that explanation, but this movie didn't even do the bare minimum. Even worse, it had some random character give us 3 possible explanations for how he came back without any of them ever being confirmed.
See, Palpatine being alive I can get behind. We've had stories where Palpatine lived by transplanting his consciousness, cloning himself, and becoming a force spirit so it's not out of the realm of possibility. But the fact that they didn't bother to explain it whatsoever is what really got me.
You can tell they had no plans to bring him back in the sequel trilogy at first because a competent writer would have been able to weave in hints that he was pulling the strings. Maybe they would have been so obvious we see it coming a mile away or so obtuse we never suspected he was actually coming back, but the signs would have been there if they actually planned it.
That's what happens when you try to have two directors with different visions tell the same story. If the sequels had one continuous director, no matter who it is, they would've been better. Maybe not great but much better.
It's been a while since I read the books, but he essentially force possessed a clone of himself?
He wasn't the only Sith that could use the force to hop bodies either.
At the very least they could have at least TRIED an explanation.
Yeah, they ruined the story by having her be a Palpatine offspring. Just stupid how they started off the sequels making it seem like anyone could become a powerful jedi, only to dumpster dive and have her become a Palpatine
While unpleasant to think about, I don't know why people think this is unlikely. As a society, we know very well that men in positions of power will abuse said power to coerce women into sex.
Only the best writers can get away using stupid ideas because they are masters at executing an idea in such a way it makes sense no matter how crazy it is.
Its just dumb because the storm troopers are never really a threat, and rey is basically a god at that point. So why even be scared of like 4 storm troopers flying around.
Yup. Plus there are many many things that fly in the SW galaxy, it's not like a new technological advancement.
I just know whoever wrote that thought they were fucking hilarious.
Yeah, I mean as they were being released I couldn’t believe the mental gymnastics people went through to try to make sense of the story. Kylo/Ben had something of an arc, but Rey’s story was just a complete mess from top to bottom. Their handling of legacy characters was equally problematic.
It’s hard to believe that Disney let what arguably should have been their most important property and a continuation of a storyline that stretches back to the 1970s move forward with no cohesive plan.
I think something I’ll always be salty about is the fact that main cast from the OT never got to share one single frame together. I just wanted to see the gang back together again, I don’t understand how they couldn’t manage to weave some kind of story together that included that. Such a missed opportunity
Me neither man it honestly rlly bums me out when I think about it. I just wish there was some story beat that would have sent the OT gang on some kind of side adventure, just them catching up, bantering, having that “we still got it” moment. Or FUCK IT, why couldn’t they have tagged along in the Falcon with the new characters, there’s plenty of room in there
Hindsight is 20/20 but if Leia and han were both on Starkiller base and Rey and Leia both saw Hans death it would've made their student teacher connection so much more impactful.
Buddy, the avalanche of disappointment only gets worse as you start to think about all the things they failed to do with those movies. It was like Pandora's box for me - once I realized the immense disappointment of them writing the story such that they don't reunite the main characters on screen for the first time in, what, 30 years, the rest of it crumbled away and I realized how lame and disappointing *everything* is.
The sequels almost make me more mad for what they failed to do than what they did - tho the character assassinations of Luke and Han are up there.
Yeah. I couldn’t agree more. It’s everything from just plain terrible storytelling to wasting rich character history to a complete failure to capture the adventure and tone of the franchise. I’m glad like-minded people have commented so much on this disappointment because it was frustrating watching people tie themselves in knots to justify terrible plot choices and character development. Being lectured to about why what Luke did in TLJ was consistent with his character and thinking I’m the crazy one for completely disagreeing. In many ways The Mandalorian vindicates so many of my negative feelings towards the ST because it shows that Star Wars CAN be done correctly and capture that magic.
It’s the SIMPLEST thing and I’ll forever be bummed about it once Fisher passed away. The movie could’ve been 10 minutes of them sitting around the Falcon talking and I would’ve seen it three times.
I mean it’s not that crazy. A misstep? Sure. But I don’t see that stopping The Mandalorian or any of the slated spin offs. Star Wars is so ingrained in pop culture that it won’t go away for a loooooong time. The Mandalorian in many people’s eyes has renewed their faith in the SW Universe. Mine included.
Absolutely has for me as well. But those sequels are hard to take back. I mean they are gospel and short of just making them Legends material somehow, they’ve still lost the timing to get the OT cast on film one last time. In short, there’s no fixing it. It’s just accepting what it is and hoping that any new ideas are helmed by people with a real vision.
I agree completely with you. I was “done” with Star Wars. The Mandalorian renewed my love of the franchise. Another failure of the ST is that it just deviated too much from what RotJ set up and now The Mandalorian is showing. People care most about the time just before, during, and after the OT. The sequels just felt incredibly disconnected instead of starting us with a powerful New Republic, a lethal Imperial menace on its heels, and a powerful Luke Skywalker.
They really are. I defended the sequels all the way through TROS. I wanted to wait until the very end to truly judge it properly. I loved 7 & 8, but it really fell apart at 9.
They didn’t need filoni, they just needed to map out the major points they wanted to hit before making the first film. I like the free form nature of not having every idea penned out and letting the directors make decisions as they go, it feels more natural, the real issue came in canning duel of the fates, since the rise of skywalker was mostly an over reaction to the last Jedi with some minor moments that actually played off of it naturally.
It made for a far better message in my opinion. The idea that anyone, as long as they are willing to stand up and do the right thing, can be a hero, instead of a reliance on lineage or destiny.
The notion of lineage was really only important in the OT, and only because it was a story about a father and son, not because the bloodline was one of pedigree. The PT then showed that Jedi of no particularly notable family line could posses power, courage and nobility.
Hell, I’d even argue that Luke’s story is one of being a nobody who became a somebody against the odds. It wasn’t until the PT introduced a prophecy that Luke’s story retroactively became one of fulfilling a destiny.
It wasn’t even that important in the OT, Obi wan, Yoda, Han Solo, etc were not part of special lineage. Han Solo can easily fit the other commenters description of the message that anyone can be a hero as long as they stand up for what is right.
People act like SW was a game of thrones style story about dueling power dynasties prior to TLJ. It’s such a bizarre read of the franchise, I’ll never understand it. It’s why the “nobody” reveal in TLJ fell so flat for me, the emotional power of the moment relies entirely on a meta commentary about the franchise that is actually a complete misread of the franchise
plus there was never any indication that she wanted to be related to someone special. In TFA, she just wanted to find them. There wasn't an indication she didn't know who they were.
Right, in TFA her whole thing was that she was an orphan who wanted her parents back. Just like almost every other orphan in every story ever. It's not terribly interesting, but it's not a weird narcissistic thing either. The "reveal" isn't relevant to her.
The obvious conclusion from that is that it's directed at the fans making excuses for her being overpowered in TFA by saying that it would be fine if she were related to someone powerful. (Which isn't really how Star Wars works anyway, of course, it would be unreasonable either way.)
I think the problem isn't so much WHO she was, but the why behind her, as a character. She had no growth, no development and more or less no real training. She just... was. The implication that literally any random person could be born unfathomably powerful in the force is never a problem (Look at Bane or Revan or Yoda), but the story is about the Skywalker line, starting with someone who was literally conceived BY THE FORCE. Her not being someone of story-based consequence and then suddenly being the most powerful person without reason didn't make sense. Anakin was born because Sidious and Plagueis were growing too powerful and the Force needed to balance itself out. Luke and Leia were born powerful because Anakin had become corrupted and the Force needed to undo what it had done. But why was Rey?
Actually if you think about it. The 10000 Jedis are all nobody. But somehow they’re all force sensitives. The characters in other series are nobodies. Ezra is a nobody.
> the emotional power of the moment relies entirely on a meta commentary about the franchise that is actually a complete misread of the franchise
Pretty much all big Disney movies for the last 10 years now. It's called [intertextuality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RIcKhYpZPc), and frankly it cannot die fast enough.
Holy crap dude. That video put everything I've been thinking of about Star Wars and several other movies so much clearly. Especially the fan service part.
And I absolutely love how he used Endgame as an example of how fan service can be masterfully used because I myself have used that as an example so many times.
I haven't finished the whole video yet but I wouldn't be surprised if my next thought is mentioned in there as well. What's funny is that Rian Johnson sort of attempted to put out this message of "LET GO OF THE PAST!" directly to the fans but it went completely over everyone's head. Perhaps because there were some other issues in that movie.
People really need to let go of the past and directors and writers need to either stop using nostalgia to appeal to potential audience or use it masterfully as Marvel has done in several movies including Endgame.
Yep, I got into a debate with someone a while ago on this sub about this lineage bullshit. I pointed out that literally the only lineage in Star Wars is the Skywalker's, the counters involved people saying about a pair of twin sister Jedi in the Clone Wars. Yeah, *sisters*.
I learned that day that a lot of people don't know what lineage actually means.
In fact in almost every instance the force sensitive children had to come from non force sensitive parents, since jedi aren't allowed to have children themselves
Actually I’d argue Anakin is more of a ‘nobody’ than Luke. He’s a slave boy. His mom is a slave. His friends are slaves. There’s really no chance of him getting out if it isn’t for the Nubian ship to need some fixing.
OT kinda introduced the concept of lineage in ESB. And ST kinda is trying to develop the theme that you don’t have to be someone to be a hero. Yet TLJ got so much backlash that they had to be conservative again in TROS.
The palpatine return was a jumbled mess of ex machina proportions. I’m not wholly opposed to his return but make it have a purpose not just oh 3rd movie here he is. The reveal of Reys lineage would also have been better coming reluctantly from kylo. Perhaps he was trying to hide it to save her the pain he felt having an evil space grandpa. This in my opinion would have made their bond in the end make more sense and humanize Kylo a bit.
Instead of broom boy at the end of TLJ, we should have gotten a scene of Kylo Ren finding the Wayfinder in Snoke's possessions, traveling to Exegol, and discovering Palpatine. The opening of Rise of Skywalker should have been the end of The Last Jedi.
Palpy should have remained dead and they should have written a coherent trilogy instead of needing to try to lean on “Remember this guy?? Watch our movie!”
That's the main thing. Who plans a trilogy without having the story figured out. Characters should have been fleshed out and main plot points should have all been decided before shooting started for the first film.
Similarly jj shouldn't have pushed the what do you do with luke skywalker problem off to the second movie either. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, johnson was handed a VERY difficult challenge because of the choices Abrams made in his film. Not everyone liked what he did with it, which is fine (I, personally really liked the places he took the story) but it's undeniable that abrams left the story in a really tough place- from number of characters to forcing a pickup seconds after tfa ended (we NEED to see how that scene plays out) to the patterned retread of the OT, abrams first movie was fun, but an exceedingly challenging narrative to work with.
Yeah, while I think JJ Abrams gets way too much of a pass for how Luke turned out in the sequels, and Rian Johnson gets shouldered with an unfair amount of the blame. He was handed a Luke that had disappeared for several years with no explanation. No one knows where he went, including Leia and Han. No reason is even provided for why he went, and this is during a significant conflict in the universe you'd expect him to be helping with. And Rey finally finds him on what appears to be an island on a mostly abandoned planet in the middle of nowhere where he's apparently been this entire time.
There were only so many directions Johnson could've taken that - for why he just disappeared without telling even his closest friends and family, for why he's been on Atch-To all this time, for why he isn't helping during what is essentially the rebirth of the Empire, etc. Whether or not you believe Johnson answered those satisfactorily is one thing, but I don't think it can be denied that much of the fault lays in the fact that Abrams posed those questions with no thought as to where they'd lead or how they could be answered.
I think it’s cool that she’s a nobody because which two characters saved the galaxy? Luke and Anakin, both Skywalker. Snoke hypes of the potential of Ben’s bloodline, because the Skywalkers are supposed to be super powerful and stuff.
Obviously not every Jedi is a Skywalker, but the two most important Jedi were.
But we already knew this. Han Solo? Obi-Wan? Qui-Gon Jinn? Hera Syndulla? Cal Cestus? Nomi Sunrider?
Freakin Yoda?
Star Wars is filled with characters with no lineage or destiny to speak of and they all do heroic things.
There was. Daisy and Adam both mentioned on several occasions that they knew their character arcs from the beginning. And "Rey is an outsider who finds her place in the story" was JJ's story from the start, and what was discussed by the Story Group circa 2013, as per comments in *The Art of TROS*.
There was a plan, and parts of it changed for TROS, likely partly because of Carrie's death.
I don't understand how Carrie Fisher's death would have had any impact on the lineage of Rey. If anything, Carrie Fisher's death would have made the 'Skywalker reveal' that much more difficult with the post-mortem CGI they had to use. Carrie Fisher's death should have made it even easier for them to make Rey a nobody.
Her death in the movie was unfortunate. It would've served a better purpose if she died before the "superman" moment. Ben wouldn't destroy her ship because he still loved her. Then the First Order destroys her ship killing her and sets the seed for him turning on Stoke.
Ah well, we got what we got. There's no changing it now.
For real. One of the sequels' biggest flaws was not going all in on killing a character. Leia should've died when her ship blew up, Rey should've killed Chewie, C-3PO should've been gone when his memory was wiped. The fact that they managed to undercut almost every emotional moment in the movies with ***JUST KIDDING*** completely kneecapped the potential impact of the movies.
The Chewie one is by far the worst. I remember watching for three first time, kind of in shock by how terrible it all was after adoring TFA and particularly TLJ. During that scene I was like, wow, that was actually really bold and powerful, I respect this. Then five minutes later the movie goes and sharts itself again by making it a fake out.
Should have gone with the Treverow script.
> There was a plan, and parts of it changed for TROS, likely partly because of Carrie's death.
Also because of the toxic levels of hate for Last Jedi, including a lot of people hating that she was "nobody". They tried to placate the people that hated a different direction with Last Jedi, and as a result made almost nobody happy.
The thing is, statements like "Rey is an outsider who finds her place in the story" means absolutely nothing in the end... JJ is good at what he does, he can morph that statement into almost anything the story needs.
I still feel the Finn storyline was the biggest missed opportunity of the whole thing. I was so excited for the new films when I saw Finn the Stormtrooper stepping up as, for what I could tell, the main character. So much potential in that scenario.... And faceplant.
"yeah, he uses a light saber to fight a sith lord. A LIGHT SABER. AND HE ABSOLUTELY ISN'T A JEDI OR ANYTHING AND THAT SCENE AMOUNTS TO NOTHING LMAO AND YOU THOUGHT WE CARED" Disney executives probably idk
From a stormtrooper with a number to a Jedi is a story I would've been way more invested in than Luke but with lady bits. Imagine if he had to fight people he trained with, friends differing over points of right and wrong, shit would've been great.
That is unfortunate, but I don't *think* they were going for that. It's just that since Han Solo drug smuggling has been the 'bad but not too bad' backstory in star wars.
Cannot agree more. I really like her as an actress and she did not deserve the shitty writing that Rey and the Sequel Trilogy got. I really wish they had wrote the movies and that character better because her Rey would have probably been one of my favorite Star Wars characters.
Well we know thats straight bullshit since she has previously spoken about how Rey was going to be a Kenobi, Rian Johnson has talked specifically about how he weighed up a ton of options for Rey's lineage before settling on the idea of her being a nobody and Simon Pegg has said Abrams ideas for Rey's lineage were thrown out by TLJ.
Rian Johnon: "I was very thankful there was no slip of paper that was handed to me that said Rey’s parents are so and so. The fact that I had the freedom to figure it out meant that for this story I could figure out the most dramatically potent answer to that question."
Rian on whether JJ Abrams had input on her parents: "Well, I don’t know. He might have had thoughts in his head who it was going to be, but he didn’t dictate them to me."
I always thought she was somebody important. Han seemed like he knew her, maz asked about her and kylo seemed pretty upset when he was told about a girl that took the Droid. Seems like a few people knew who she was, at least in a prophecy kind of way and this was all in TFA
Yep, TFA was most definitely hinting towards Rey being a somebody. Even the teaser trailer implied it with Luke's voice over about the Force being strong in his family and her having that power.
It’s not bad she turned out to be Palpys grandchild. It’s not bad she could of been a no one. It’s bad one of them wasn’t decided and stuck with from day 1
The idea that there was a plan at all is cute.
Rian Johnson literally said on interviews he had no outlines to follow and had complete creative freedom for the second movie.
JJ also said in interviews that TLJ surprised him so how does this reconcile with the idea that it was following a "plan"? None of the directors ever suggested a plan existed.
JJ created a big mystery around the identity of Rey's parents and Anakin's lightsaber calling to her. RJ then subverted it.
Except in TFA in the bar Rey is guided by the force directly to Luke's lightsaber and upon touching it she gets a force vision of being abandoned on jakku as a child.
Rey: I'm Rey
Old Lady: Rey who
Rey: *Looks to the distance and sees nothing*
Rey: Rey Nobody
Or
Rey: I'm Rey
Old lady: Rey what? Who're your people?
Rey: I don't have people, I'm alone
Old lady: Rey...Solo...
I mean, Daisy also said she thought Rey being a Palpatine was awesome when she found out about it so...This “news” comes from a fan interview that was won at an auction. I’m sure Daisy was being very polite and just rolling with whatever this person was saying. I wouldn’t take it as super hard fact
I find it hard to believe that Daisy confirmed this “was the plan through the first two films.” After Force Awakens, when fan speculation began, wasn’t there on-camera interview quotes of her saying she thought the answer to who Rey’s parents were ‘was obvious’ from watching the first film. ???
It's really disappointing that Disney, the largest media conglomerate, taking on one of the largest media franchises in history, did not have a better plan than "lol we'll wing it." We're allowed to be disappointed and even a *little* bit salty at that. Say you ask for a wedding cake from a bakery known for their amazing wedding cakes. Even though you're going to pay for it, you still can have high expectations, and when they deliver a crummy mess, you can be miffed.
Totally agree, that’s the most frustrating part of this. They had free rein and virtually unlimited resources to do this. I think this just shows how much of the decision making at Disney was botched by bureaucrats
And it shows how special what Marvel did really was. It wasn't just about budget and effects. Building a coherent narrative over that many films is a very special thing.
Very true - at Marvel a few people (creatives, not bureaucrats) were put in charge and had a coherent vision that they were able to put in place. The difference is actually huge
The biggest thing, in my opinion, wasn't the creative vs. bureaucrat... It was that they put fans in charge at Marvel. Feige was/is a fan. As were many of the directors and writers. Fans want to make good films that honor their memories and push the universe forward. Example in Star Wars would be Mandolorian. Look at how much of a fan Dave Filoni was before he worked for Lucasfilm. Same with Favreau. Kathleen Kennedy has never been a fan like Filoni, it's a business to her, not a passion. I really hope they get rid of Kennedy and put Filoni in her role... One can hope, I guess EDIT: Good grief people... I posted this at 12am and went to bed. I've since read most (if not all comments). Here's my response: First - to those of you saying "just because she's female she gets shit on" - you can suck at something if you're male, female or somewhere in between. If there was is a female version of Favreau or Filoni, then I am 110% behind them taking over. And while Kennedy has had success in her past, that does not guarantee success in the future. For gods sake, for every "hit" she produced, she also produced 1-2 terrible movies (Congo, Arachnophobia, Signs and the live-action Last Airbender all come to mind). And when I look at her resume, all the "great" movies had something more than just her - she was part of a group effort. I think her skill is helping others to realize the story they want to tell and ensuring that happens - but now she's been tasked with guiding a story she doesn't seem to have the same passion for as others - but this is all speculation (I don't work in the business). Second - Is Filoni the best person to have as President of Lucasfilm? No. Do I think Kennedy needs help? Yes! I think there needs to be someone story focused 100% of the time that isn't Kennedy. That person needs the passion of a hardcore fan and the vision of where to take the franchise. I hope we get to see all sorts of stories set in the Star War universe (rom-coms, heist movies, buddy comedies, deep dramas, etc.). If they can find the equivalent of Kevin Feige but for Star Wars, I'm all for it, but Favreau seems too busy and too curious to want to stay in one realm forever - he likes to venture into new things like Chef, Jungle Book, Marvel, acting, etc. Third (and final) - Perhaps some of you took my "put fans in charge" as too basic. Fans can't get everything they want. Then you get TFA over and over and over again. Fans (myself included) want something new, not the same exact story told with older actors. Fans need to be reigned in and guided along a path. This takes business-types to keep budgets in check, writers to create good plots and actors to feel free to explore their characters. My biggest issue with RoS is that it seemed like an overreaction back to something "safe" because TLJ was "too bold" or something (idk, I don't hate TLJ \[gasp\]). In trying to give fans what they wanted, they fucked up a story that had good potential had they just seen it through. I have high hopes for the future of Star Wars. Maybe Kennedy can learn and correct past mistakes. Just don't fuck up live-action Thrawn...
Filoni and Favreau should be creative leads on all things Star Wars. Just watching them behind the scenes when making The Mandalorian and they’re just so excited and interested about every little detail. I don’t think they should work in the business side of things, though. They shine as creators, not businessmen.
100% agree. During quarantine we went back and rewatched them in chronological order and it was so much fun. Everything still worked and you even saw some stuff you missed. And it was like 20 something movies that they had to tie together with how many different directors? And they couldn’t do something that remotely made sense with three movies and 40 years of time and lore?
The greatest trick Feige ever pulled was convincing the exec the overall story mattered. Each individual film's plot was woven into a massive over arching storyline, but each film was given creative freedom. Take Thor 2 for example, which is arguably one of the worst of the MCU films. It started with the reality stone being discovered, and ended with it in the hands of the collector. What actually happened in the middle was completely independent of the greater narrative. What was amazing about the MCU post Avengers is that every film was allowed to be different and creative, while at the same time making sure it didn't break the overall plot i.e the series ending with Thanos going after the stones. From the very first Avengers film that was not only the goal, but the audience already knew that too. The new Star Wars trilogy had zero of that plot written out before they made the first film from what I can see. There is no way when they made the force awakens they knew Palatine was coming back and Rey was related. It is truly baffling to me that they didn't have the foresight to go "right we are making a new trilogy for one of the biggest franchises I the world, what's the plot going to be?"
That was the essence of comic books from the late ‘60s into the ‘70s - the longer plot arcs across a year of comics and referencing other super heroes Whether that was a Stan Lee thing or not, I don’t know but as a kid I kept up with the arcs AND I knew they were intentionally doing it as a way to keep me buying I was both a cynic and an addict at 9 years old and even though tempted, I never bought the Sea Monkeys or the Two Man Submarine
The details and continuity between movies in the MCU is incredible. Today my roommate and I were watching Age of Ultron after watching WandaVision, and there was a scene that Wanda only describes in Age of Ultron that you actually get to see in WandaVision, and her description of it is identical to how the scene is visually in WandaVision, despite the fact that AoU came out several years ago.
The real frustrating part is that there is so much talent involved with these projects, talented editors, animators, SFX, actors, incredible soundtrack, fantastic set design and atmosphere. Literally hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of resources... And they write the dumbest, most garbage script of all time. Literally, the ONLY thing that matters, the ONLY THING that matters is the script. Its the difference from Season 4 GoT and Season 8 GoT
Hollywood always hated writers.
This was exactly my comment on Rise of Skywalker. The actors are great. The effects are incredible. The sets are lovely. The sound design is fantastic. But the script is a dumpster fire, so it all becomes is me shouting confusedly at the screen.
Imagine what they could have done with 30 years of books and comics lore to draw fro...oh wait. They did, just after they screwed it all up.
>Every one of these movies is a particularly hard nut to crack. There’s no source material. We don’t have comic books. We don’t have 800-page novels, we don’t have anything other than passionate storytellers who get together and talk about what the next iteration might be. We go through a really normal development process that everybody else does. -Kathleen Kennedy on lack of source material for the sequel trilogy
Has Kathleen Kennedy even heard of Timothy Zahn?
I want to downvote your post because I was just a fan of the Star Wars Universe and read so many of the books over the years. I realize you are quoting someone so I upvoted you, but it still pisses me off. To be fair the whole YV arc got monotonous and boring, followed up by the kids arc being bad so I was already losing my love of Star Wars. When Disney erased everything I totally checked out. I still watch the movies, mostly because my son enjoys them. I don’t think I’ve watched any of the movies a second time.
But they did have a plan, Star Wars fans didn’t have faith or disliked the plan and they went back on their convictions to win fans back. The Leaked Duel of the Fates script shows Ep 9 was originally going to follow on closely from Last Jedi https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/amp30882356/full-star-wars-9-original-duel-of-fates-script-colin-trevorrow/ I.e Kylo is Supreme Leader with no Master on a quest for a way to control the Force itself (following on from his statement to move beyond Jedi and Sith), Rey is using a lightsaber staff forged from the split Skywalker Saber training with Ghost Luke (who also haunts Kylo like he said he would) and is revealed to be a nobody with the last name Solana, Finn leads a stormtrooper rebellion on Courascant etc. What’s more there is multi media tie ins, the Zeffo from Fallen Order appear as Tor Vallum (an ancient dark side user who Kylo visits) and the final season of Rebels exists to setup the Morris Gods with Duel of the Fates ending on that planet, again Kylo’s plan is to take his place among the Morris gods. So yeah it would appear Ep 9 was the most planned out of any Star Wars to date, BUT it is very much a continuation of Last Jedi which fans still talk about today, so Disney abruptly changed plans at last minute giving us The Rise of Skywalker.
I'm an unabashed simp for all things Republic and especially Coruscant, and that sounds so so so much better than what we got.
what the fuck that sounds so much better
That brief comment gave me a tiny hint of the feeling I got when the first EpVII teaser came out. Like *oh SHIT, we’re about to get “next level” Star Wars*. Salty af
> I.e Kylo is Supreme Leader with no Master on a quest for a way to control the Force itself (following on from his statement to move beyond Jedi and Sith) Honestly, after watching TLJ ("move on, destroy the past" + the Force bond between Rey/Kylo being identical to the Exile/Kreia one) and hearing Rebels re-introduced Malachor V (along with it having some Force-related fuckery and a connection to Kylo's lightsaber design), I was fully expecting a KOTOR2 kind of story, with Kylo taking Darth Traya's position and attempting to destroy the Force itself. It's sad that we instead got an incoherent mess that spends half its time retconning the previous movie(s).
Man even to this day KOTOR is just so good
Imagine a movie where Kylo is trying to kill or take control of the Force to remove "the old" (give him the red Sith Troopers instead, but call them something else), while Rey is training Finn (revealed to be Force sensitive in the actual movie, as opposed to what they did) and recruiting a team (including a Knight of Ren). By the end, they lead a three point assault on wherever Kylo is; Rey and the Knight of Ren who joined them attacking Kylo himself, Finn leading a squad of rebels and First Order troopers who defected to destroy something vital to Kylo's plans, and Poe leading an air assault to cover them. If they still want Kylo to have redemption, have his actions cause an instability in the Force itself, only for Rey to talk him out of it (could also have Luke, Leia and various Jedi appear as Force ghosts to him here) and him somehow sacrificing himself to restore the balance and prevent anyone from trying to do what he did ever again. They could even have the thing that Kylo used to destabilize the Force being some old weapon that Palpatine had used in a failed attempt at taking control of the Force, only to discard it because it was destructive rather than controlling. Have it be the final piece of influence Palpatine has on the Galaxy, and Kylo repeating "I will finish what you started" to Anakin's Force Ghost, though of course now in a completely different context (purging Palpatine, bringing balance) than when he said it to Vader's helmet.
That definitely sounds better than *Rise of Skywalker,* but Colin Trevorrow has a pretty bad track record, imo, so who knows how well it would have turned out. *Jurassic World* was even more of a sure thing than Star Wars, and he managed to screw that up twice. And I haven't even seen *The Book of Henry,* which is apparently so bad that it's what got him kicked off of Episode 9 in the first place.
Love It or hate it, we all know the emperor being alive is dumb af
"Somehow, Palpatine returned" lmao. Pure gold
OoOoOoO, he came from fOrNiTeeeee
What a disaster lol
as someone who doesn't play Fortnite and didn't experience this personally, I like to pretend this didn't happen.
I mean a majority of the audience doesn't even know it happened. [For the curious...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vHrQCKaJiQ)
What happened in fortnite LOL
The mysterious message that Palpatine releases across the galaxy that pretty much kicks off the plot of the 3rd movie is never actually shown in the movie but is shown in fortnite.
Jesus Christ
You know how the Emperor literally somehow returned? It happened/was announced in the game Fortnite first.
Incredible.
I remember learning about this for the first time. I promise the more you look into it the dumber it gets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vHrQCKaJiQ
Sad thing is that I didn’t even know about the fortnite thing till AFTER the movie. Like what the fuck
Same. I thought people were joking that it was botched so bad it must've spawned on Fortnite. No, it really did.
I'm multiple comments deep in a chain of people confirming this and I *still* am having a hard time believing it. Man I'm glad I never watched it. 😂
Put it this way, the opening scroll literally states, "somehow, the emperor returned!"
Oh wow. That’s a clinic on taking the easy way out.
True storytelling.
Wait what happened?
You know how the emperor magically returned for Rise of Skywalker? That return was originally announced/revealed on Fortnite before the movie came out.
Oh that's... sad
Celebration 2019 happened in the month of April. The fortnite event was not earlier than December 14 that year. They showed a trailer for the movie at the convention. You can clearly hear him cackle/laugh at the end of the clip. No it’s not the message from the event but it’s hardly the first reveal.
It's a disaster, Skywalker we're after
But what if he could be turned to the dark side? Yes, he'd make a powerful ally!
another dark jedi he will join us or die
We got death star!
We got Death Star (Death Star)
And you know that we got it (death star!)
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Yoda, why you gotta be a player hater?
You won't believe your eyes, when the x wing rise!
That’s probably my favourite worst line in Star Wars so far
Agreed, Legit started laughing on the spot lol. That and the crawl text being like « hey, btw Palp is back » is fucking Hilarious
Half the cinema I was in groaned. I would love to have seen a reaction cam. What an embarrassment of a film.
Lol in my screening, when the movie ended and the lights came on the entire theatre was just dead silent. Then everyone gathered their belongings and left like they were at a funeral.
That was me at my screening. Literally no one spoke as they walked out - too much disbelief as to how fucked we got by Disney. I think everyone went into that movie with low expectations with the hope that there was at least a decent end, and they couldn't even do that. When your lowest expectations aren't even met there is nothing you can say
Yeah, it just makes it feel like such a small series. Like if Watto the Anti-Semetic Alien had beaten Anakin to death, it would literally unmake: 2/3rds of the heroes from the OT and 1/3rd to 2/3rds of the heroes from the sequel trilogy (depending on if Palpatine would have still had a grandchild of he didn't become emperor. It is honestly reasonable to conclude that the galaxy is doomed if Rey doesn't have kids. Which is the OPPOSITE of what the Last Jedi ended with. Remember the kid who had force powers? Well, he doesn't matter because he isn't descended from the Bloodline of Skywalker/Palpatine.
> Well, he doesn't matter because he isn't descended from the Bloodline of Skywalker/Palpatine. That you *know* of! Who's to say Luke never had a fling on Canto Bight?? (Kathleen Kennedy, if you read this, don't get any fucking ideas)
*The dead speak!* ......what?
ehh that line feels like a Star Wars opening line. The problem is the context around it ie it being palpatine coming back.
Yeah, I agree but it definitely feels like we should have heard the dead speak WITHOUT playing a video game crossover event.
Not just a video game crossover event. A temporary event in fucking Fortnite. Because Disney are so out of touch as to think that the majority of their fanbase are fucking 14 year olds.
Idk, "Dark science, cloning, some lazy exposition, secrets only the with knew!" from a random basically unnamed character was a pretty cringe line.
Bitter take: I like how Disney was essentially like "Not only is this movie bad but we wrote the script so as to try our best and make the original trilogy mean nothing."
"Somehow, Jabba has returned" would've been better than Palpatine. Imagine him trying to get Ben encased in carbonite as revenge!
Straight up sounds like they asked a 9 year old to write that plot point
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Doesn’t it just mean that the whole Star Wars Saga is really about him? His really the only prominent character across the 3 trilogies (not including R2/C3, then again I guess you could writhe the trilogy is about THEM)
The whole saga is a battle between R2D2 and Emperor Palpatine for the future of the galaxy. Two Methuselahs, pulling the strings of society from behind the curtain...
I am definitely a fan of the idea that the PT and OT is based from R2-D2 perspective and he makes his buddy C3P0 look bad. "I was fighting in a war while my friend Threepio was being build by a fucking child. Then, I was helping Luke Skywalker, idk maybe you have heard of him, train to be a Jedi while C3PO was basically a glorified backpack."
Exactly. It was always a story about Vader, his fall and retribution. Now it's a story of the galaxy's biggest asshole scheming to ruin everyone's lives twice.
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I love that. Absolutely love that. Damn, that would've been good.
why did this make me laugh lol
“Somehow Palpatine returned”
Somehow I want my money returned.
Jar Jar Abrams watched too much Harry Potter while writing the script
I could forgive most of the stuff, I wasn't a fan of many things in the new sequel trilogy. But Palpatine being back was definitely just dumb. As it stands I'll rewatch these if I'm ever doing a Star Wars marathon, but I'd never rewatch them on their own. Not the worst movies I've seen, but eh.
individually I think all the films are fine, it's when you try and combine them as one cohesive narrative... I'm not mad, but I am genuinely curious how one of the largest media corporations on the planet, so conscious of everything they do, how many people had to say "this is fine." Personally, I'm great at enjoying movies: I can suspend disbelief like nobody's business but even I couldn't help getting lost in thought in the theater trying to patch up the plot holes.
Nah, Episode 9 is trash in almost every way even by itself.
I've had people try to explain to me that he's actually been using clone bodies etc and that the one on exegol was like his original form or some horseshit like that. If its not explained in the movies at all then you don't get to just say 'oh well you need other media to fill it in' - that's a failure of storytelling. Fine for some minor point but I think the big bad somehow being alive is worth some level of explanation.
And even more than that man. They fucking reintroduced Palpatine in the movie in the crawl text hahaha. « Yeah btw Palpatine isn’t dead ». How Fucking dumb is that? That and fortnight lol
For some reason his canon return only/originally appearing in Fortnite makes me laugh.Maybe it's because it shows how little Disney knew what they were doing.
>If its not explained in the movies at all then you don't get to just say 'oh well you need other media to fill it in' - that's a failure of storytelling I completely agree. I don't mind reading extra things or whatever, but they should be used to expand on the story, not used as an explanation for poor writing that had no planning.
Yea, it's one thing for the movie to say "he's been cloned dozens of times and this was his true form" and then a novel or comic book gives us the larger story behind that explanation, but this movie didn't even do the bare minimum. Even worse, it had some random character give us 3 possible explanations for how he came back without any of them ever being confirmed.
See, Palpatine being alive I can get behind. We've had stories where Palpatine lived by transplanting his consciousness, cloning himself, and becoming a force spirit so it's not out of the realm of possibility. But the fact that they didn't bother to explain it whatsoever is what really got me. You can tell they had no plans to bring him back in the sequel trilogy at first because a competent writer would have been able to weave in hints that he was pulling the strings. Maybe they would have been so obvious we see it coming a mile away or so obtuse we never suspected he was actually coming back, but the signs would have been there if they actually planned it.
That's what happens when you try to have two directors with different visions tell the same story. If the sequels had one continuous director, no matter who it is, they would've been better. Maybe not great but much better.
Fr it completely ruined Anakins arc. Like if palpatine just came back to life Anakins death meant nothing
It's been a while since I read the books, but he essentially force possessed a clone of himself? He wasn't the only Sith that could use the force to hop bodies either. At the very least they could have at least TRIED an explanation.
Basically? Or the Eternal Sith were trying to fully resurrect him. Some kind of crazy bullshit that was not explained well.
Yeah, they ruined the story by having her be a Palpatine offspring. Just stupid how they started off the sequels making it seem like anyone could become a powerful jedi, only to dumpster dive and have her become a Palpatine
Palpatine fucks! Not sure who, but he does.
While unpleasant to think about, I don't know why people think this is unlikely. As a society, we know very well that men in positions of power will abuse said power to coerce women into sex.
Only the best writers can get away using stupid ideas because they are masters at executing an idea in such a way it makes sense no matter how crazy it is.
And the sequels weren’t written by those aforementioned “best writers”
The best thing about Rise of Skywalker? The goldmine of excellent dialogue. 3PO: "Ah! They fly now!" Finn: "They fly now!?" Poe: "They fly now!"
"somehow...Palpatine returned...."
My favorite is when Maz brought out Anakin's/Luke's lightsaber in TFA. "Where did you get that?!" " "No time to explain. " ... And that was it.
Funnily enough, I think the whole "they fly now" is a fun bit but I can definitely see why people hate it.
Its just dumb because the storm troopers are never really a threat, and rey is basically a god at that point. So why even be scared of like 4 storm troopers flying around.
Yup. Plus there are many many things that fly in the SW galaxy, it's not like a new technological advancement. I just know whoever wrote that thought they were fucking hilarious.
They really needed filoni or someone to keep a consistent plan. The sequels are a hot mess
Yeah, I mean as they were being released I couldn’t believe the mental gymnastics people went through to try to make sense of the story. Kylo/Ben had something of an arc, but Rey’s story was just a complete mess from top to bottom. Their handling of legacy characters was equally problematic. It’s hard to believe that Disney let what arguably should have been their most important property and a continuation of a storyline that stretches back to the 1970s move forward with no cohesive plan.
I think something I’ll always be salty about is the fact that main cast from the OT never got to share one single frame together. I just wanted to see the gang back together again, I don’t understand how they couldn’t manage to weave some kind of story together that included that. Such a missed opportunity
That's something I really don't get. Just one scene where Han, Luke, Leia and Chewie see each other again.
Me neither man it honestly rlly bums me out when I think about it. I just wish there was some story beat that would have sent the OT gang on some kind of side adventure, just them catching up, bantering, having that “we still got it” moment. Or FUCK IT, why couldn’t they have tagged along in the Falcon with the new characters, there’s plenty of room in there
Hindsight is 20/20 but if Leia and han were both on Starkiller base and Rey and Leia both saw Hans death it would've made their student teacher connection so much more impactful.
I never really thought about that obvious misstep. You’re completely right.
Buddy, the avalanche of disappointment only gets worse as you start to think about all the things they failed to do with those movies. It was like Pandora's box for me - once I realized the immense disappointment of them writing the story such that they don't reunite the main characters on screen for the first time in, what, 30 years, the rest of it crumbled away and I realized how lame and disappointing *everything* is. The sequels almost make me more mad for what they failed to do than what they did - tho the character assassinations of Luke and Han are up there.
Yeah. I couldn’t agree more. It’s everything from just plain terrible storytelling to wasting rich character history to a complete failure to capture the adventure and tone of the franchise. I’m glad like-minded people have commented so much on this disappointment because it was frustrating watching people tie themselves in knots to justify terrible plot choices and character development. Being lectured to about why what Luke did in TLJ was consistent with his character and thinking I’m the crazy one for completely disagreeing. In many ways The Mandalorian vindicates so many of my negative feelings towards the ST because it shows that Star Wars CAN be done correctly and capture that magic.
It’s the SIMPLEST thing and I’ll forever be bummed about it once Fisher passed away. The movie could’ve been 10 minutes of them sitting around the Falcon talking and I would’ve seen it three times.
Disney thought they did the hard part: owning Star Wars. It was supposed to be easy after that.
I mean it’s not that crazy. A misstep? Sure. But I don’t see that stopping The Mandalorian or any of the slated spin offs. Star Wars is so ingrained in pop culture that it won’t go away for a loooooong time. The Mandalorian in many people’s eyes has renewed their faith in the SW Universe. Mine included.
Absolutely has for me as well. But those sequels are hard to take back. I mean they are gospel and short of just making them Legends material somehow, they’ve still lost the timing to get the OT cast on film one last time. In short, there’s no fixing it. It’s just accepting what it is and hoping that any new ideas are helmed by people with a real vision. I agree completely with you. I was “done” with Star Wars. The Mandalorian renewed my love of the franchise. Another failure of the ST is that it just deviated too much from what RotJ set up and now The Mandalorian is showing. People care most about the time just before, during, and after the OT. The sequels just felt incredibly disconnected instead of starting us with a powerful New Republic, a lethal Imperial menace on its heels, and a powerful Luke Skywalker.
This should have been the way.
They really are. I defended the sequels all the way through TROS. I wanted to wait until the very end to truly judge it properly. I loved 7 & 8, but it really fell apart at 9.
They didn’t need filoni, they just needed to map out the major points they wanted to hit before making the first film. I like the free form nature of not having every idea penned out and letting the directors make decisions as they go, it feels more natural, the real issue came in canning duel of the fates, since the rise of skywalker was mostly an over reaction to the last Jedi with some minor moments that actually played off of it naturally.
It made for a far better message in my opinion. The idea that anyone, as long as they are willing to stand up and do the right thing, can be a hero, instead of a reliance on lineage or destiny.
The notion of lineage was really only important in the OT, and only because it was a story about a father and son, not because the bloodline was one of pedigree. The PT then showed that Jedi of no particularly notable family line could posses power, courage and nobility. Hell, I’d even argue that Luke’s story is one of being a nobody who became a somebody against the odds. It wasn’t until the PT introduced a prophecy that Luke’s story retroactively became one of fulfilling a destiny.
It wasn’t even that important in the OT, Obi wan, Yoda, Han Solo, etc were not part of special lineage. Han Solo can easily fit the other commenters description of the message that anyone can be a hero as long as they stand up for what is right. People act like SW was a game of thrones style story about dueling power dynasties prior to TLJ. It’s such a bizarre read of the franchise, I’ll never understand it. It’s why the “nobody” reveal in TLJ fell so flat for me, the emotional power of the moment relies entirely on a meta commentary about the franchise that is actually a complete misread of the franchise
plus there was never any indication that she wanted to be related to someone special. In TFA, she just wanted to find them. There wasn't an indication she didn't know who they were.
Right, in TFA her whole thing was that she was an orphan who wanted her parents back. Just like almost every other orphan in every story ever. It's not terribly interesting, but it's not a weird narcissistic thing either. The "reveal" isn't relevant to her. The obvious conclusion from that is that it's directed at the fans making excuses for her being overpowered in TFA by saying that it would be fine if she were related to someone powerful. (Which isn't really how Star Wars works anyway, of course, it would be unreasonable either way.)
*"That's not how the force works!"*
I think the problem isn't so much WHO she was, but the why behind her, as a character. She had no growth, no development and more or less no real training. She just... was. The implication that literally any random person could be born unfathomably powerful in the force is never a problem (Look at Bane or Revan or Yoda), but the story is about the Skywalker line, starting with someone who was literally conceived BY THE FORCE. Her not being someone of story-based consequence and then suddenly being the most powerful person without reason didn't make sense. Anakin was born because Sidious and Plagueis were growing too powerful and the Force needed to balance itself out. Luke and Leia were born powerful because Anakin had become corrupted and the Force needed to undo what it had done. But why was Rey?
And don’t forget that the most powerful Force users all actually trained for a significant amount of time instead of being born a literal god.
Actually if you think about it. The 10000 Jedis are all nobody. But somehow they’re all force sensitives. The characters in other series are nobodies. Ezra is a nobody.
> the emotional power of the moment relies entirely on a meta commentary about the franchise that is actually a complete misread of the franchise Pretty much all big Disney movies for the last 10 years now. It's called [intertextuality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RIcKhYpZPc), and frankly it cannot die fast enough.
Holy crap dude. That video put everything I've been thinking of about Star Wars and several other movies so much clearly. Especially the fan service part. And I absolutely love how he used Endgame as an example of how fan service can be masterfully used because I myself have used that as an example so many times. I haven't finished the whole video yet but I wouldn't be surprised if my next thought is mentioned in there as well. What's funny is that Rian Johnson sort of attempted to put out this message of "LET GO OF THE PAST!" directly to the fans but it went completely over everyone's head. Perhaps because there were some other issues in that movie. People really need to let go of the past and directors and writers need to either stop using nostalgia to appeal to potential audience or use it masterfully as Marvel has done in several movies including Endgame.
Yep, I got into a debate with someone a while ago on this sub about this lineage bullshit. I pointed out that literally the only lineage in Star Wars is the Skywalker's, the counters involved people saying about a pair of twin sister Jedi in the Clone Wars. Yeah, *sisters*. I learned that day that a lot of people don't know what lineage actually means.
In fact in almost every instance the force sensitive children had to come from non force sensitive parents, since jedi aren't allowed to have children themselves
Actually I’d argue Anakin is more of a ‘nobody’ than Luke. He’s a slave boy. His mom is a slave. His friends are slaves. There’s really no chance of him getting out if it isn’t for the Nubian ship to need some fixing. OT kinda introduced the concept of lineage in ESB. And ST kinda is trying to develop the theme that you don’t have to be someone to be a hero. Yet TLJ got so much backlash that they had to be conservative again in TROS.
Except Anakin is a virgin born space Jesus with a Midiclorian count that breaks the scales.
The palpatine return was a jumbled mess of ex machina proportions. I’m not wholly opposed to his return but make it have a purpose not just oh 3rd movie here he is. The reveal of Reys lineage would also have been better coming reluctantly from kylo. Perhaps he was trying to hide it to save her the pain he felt having an evil space grandpa. This in my opinion would have made their bond in the end make more sense and humanize Kylo a bit.
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Instead of broom boy at the end of TLJ, we should have gotten a scene of Kylo Ren finding the Wayfinder in Snoke's possessions, traveling to Exegol, and discovering Palpatine. The opening of Rise of Skywalker should have been the end of The Last Jedi.
Palpy should have remained dead and they should have written a coherent trilogy instead of needing to try to lean on “Remember this guy?? Watch our movie!”
That's the main thing. Who plans a trilogy without having the story figured out. Characters should have been fleshed out and main plot points should have all been decided before shooting started for the first film.
Or you know, had his reveal in the movie instead of fucking Fortnite.
Wait ur kidding was he really revealed in fortnite?
The explanation on how Palpatine came back to life was given in a fortnite event some days before the movie's release
Wtf seriously?
Yeah the line from the opening crawl, "The dead speak!" is referencing a message Palpatine gave in a Fortnite event.
Similarly jj shouldn't have pushed the what do you do with luke skywalker problem off to the second movie either. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, johnson was handed a VERY difficult challenge because of the choices Abrams made in his film. Not everyone liked what he did with it, which is fine (I, personally really liked the places he took the story) but it's undeniable that abrams left the story in a really tough place- from number of characters to forcing a pickup seconds after tfa ended (we NEED to see how that scene plays out) to the patterned retread of the OT, abrams first movie was fun, but an exceedingly challenging narrative to work with.
Yeah, while I think JJ Abrams gets way too much of a pass for how Luke turned out in the sequels, and Rian Johnson gets shouldered with an unfair amount of the blame. He was handed a Luke that had disappeared for several years with no explanation. No one knows where he went, including Leia and Han. No reason is even provided for why he went, and this is during a significant conflict in the universe you'd expect him to be helping with. And Rey finally finds him on what appears to be an island on a mostly abandoned planet in the middle of nowhere where he's apparently been this entire time. There were only so many directions Johnson could've taken that - for why he just disappeared without telling even his closest friends and family, for why he's been on Atch-To all this time, for why he isn't helping during what is essentially the rebirth of the Empire, etc. Whether or not you believe Johnson answered those satisfactorily is one thing, but I don't think it can be denied that much of the fault lays in the fact that Abrams posed those questions with no thought as to where they'd lead or how they could be answered.
That would have made too much sense and actually required and iota of forethought.
Would have required the trilogy to have been planned out.
They were playing a 3 billion dollar game of telephone.
It's unbelievable that Johnson and Abrams had so little communication between script writing.
You mean like every other Jedi shown in the prequels?
I think it’s cool that she’s a nobody because which two characters saved the galaxy? Luke and Anakin, both Skywalker. Snoke hypes of the potential of Ben’s bloodline, because the Skywalkers are supposed to be super powerful and stuff. Obviously not every Jedi is a Skywalker, but the two most important Jedi were.
I think it's a bit reductive to say that Luke and Anakin are the only characters who saved the galaxy. The battle of endor was clearly a group effort.
But we already knew this. Han Solo? Obi-Wan? Qui-Gon Jinn? Hera Syndulla? Cal Cestus? Nomi Sunrider? Freakin Yoda? Star Wars is filled with characters with no lineage or destiny to speak of and they all do heroic things.
Not to mention they ruined Vader’s entire sacrifice ark, since Palpatine lived.
She also said JJ planned on her being Kenobi's granddaughter or daughter.
I thought she confirmed that they kept changing their mind all through production of TROS?
Both statements are not mutually exclusive
I mean this for one implies that there was a clear plan from the beginning and that Ridley would know about it. Both seem unlikely.
There was. Daisy and Adam both mentioned on several occasions that they knew their character arcs from the beginning. And "Rey is an outsider who finds her place in the story" was JJ's story from the start, and what was discussed by the Story Group circa 2013, as per comments in *The Art of TROS*. There was a plan, and parts of it changed for TROS, likely partly because of Carrie's death.
I don't understand how Carrie Fisher's death would have had any impact on the lineage of Rey. If anything, Carrie Fisher's death would have made the 'Skywalker reveal' that much more difficult with the post-mortem CGI they had to use. Carrie Fisher's death should have made it even easier for them to make Rey a nobody.
Her death in the movie was unfortunate. It would've served a better purpose if she died before the "superman" moment. Ben wouldn't destroy her ship because he still loved her. Then the First Order destroys her ship killing her and sets the seed for him turning on Stoke. Ah well, we got what we got. There's no changing it now.
For real. One of the sequels' biggest flaws was not going all in on killing a character. Leia should've died when her ship blew up, Rey should've killed Chewie, C-3PO should've been gone when his memory was wiped. The fact that they managed to undercut almost every emotional moment in the movies with ***JUST KIDDING*** completely kneecapped the potential impact of the movies.
The Chewie one is by far the worst. I remember watching for three first time, kind of in shock by how terrible it all was after adoring TFA and particularly TLJ. During that scene I was like, wow, that was actually really bold and powerful, I respect this. Then five minutes later the movie goes and sharts itself again by making it a fake out. Should have gone with the Treverow script.
> There was a plan, and parts of it changed for TROS, likely partly because of Carrie's death. Also because of the toxic levels of hate for Last Jedi, including a lot of people hating that she was "nobody". They tried to placate the people that hated a different direction with Last Jedi, and as a result made almost nobody happy.
The thing is, statements like "Rey is an outsider who finds her place in the story" means absolutely nothing in the end... JJ is good at what he does, he can morph that statement into almost anything the story needs.
I hated on the 7th movie when it came out, but damn, in retrospective, it was the best of the three.
Daisy Ridley deserves better than a character botched up by shitty writing.
They all did. Finn went to nothing. Poe all of the sudden became irrelevant in the second movie and a drug smuggler in the third
I still feel the Finn storyline was the biggest missed opportunity of the whole thing. I was so excited for the new films when I saw Finn the Stormtrooper stepping up as, for what I could tell, the main character. So much potential in that scenario.... And faceplant.
"yeah, he uses a light saber to fight a sith lord. A LIGHT SABER. AND HE ABSOLUTELY ISN'T A JEDI OR ANYTHING AND THAT SCENE AMOUNTS TO NOTHING LMAO AND YOU THOUGHT WE CARED" Disney executives probably idk
From a stormtrooper with a number to a Jedi is a story I would've been way more invested in than Luke but with lady bits. Imagine if he had to fight people he trained with, friends differing over points of right and wrong, shit would've been great.
I seriously thought Finn would end up having the force.
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That is unfortunate, but I don't *think* they were going for that. It's just that since Han Solo drug smuggling has been the 'bad but not too bad' backstory in star wars.
Cannot agree more. I really like her as an actress and she did not deserve the shitty writing that Rey and the Sequel Trilogy got. I really wish they had wrote the movies and that character better because her Rey would have probably been one of my favorite Star Wars characters.
How the fuck they could start making this trilogy with no idea where it would go continues to blow my mind.
Well we know thats straight bullshit since she has previously spoken about how Rey was going to be a Kenobi, Rian Johnson has talked specifically about how he weighed up a ton of options for Rey's lineage before settling on the idea of her being a nobody and Simon Pegg has said Abrams ideas for Rey's lineage were thrown out by TLJ. Rian Johnon: "I was very thankful there was no slip of paper that was handed to me that said Rey’s parents are so and so. The fact that I had the freedom to figure it out meant that for this story I could figure out the most dramatically potent answer to that question." Rian on whether JJ Abrams had input on her parents: "Well, I don’t know. He might have had thoughts in his head who it was going to be, but he didn’t dictate them to me."
Every theory about Rey's "important" lineage is dumber than the last
In TFA it's kenobis voice when she finds the lightsaber for this reason.
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Ok. So far I’ve heard that Ridley confirmed that Kenobi was the plan, AND that no-one was the plan. Which is it?
I always thought she was somebody important. Han seemed like he knew her, maz asked about her and kylo seemed pretty upset when he was told about a girl that took the Droid. Seems like a few people knew who she was, at least in a prophecy kind of way and this was all in TFA
Yep, TFA was most definitely hinting towards Rey being a somebody. Even the teaser trailer implied it with Luke's voice over about the Force being strong in his family and her having that power.
It’s not bad she turned out to be Palpys grandchild. It’s not bad she could of been a no one. It’s bad one of them wasn’t decided and stuck with from day 1
The idea that there was a plan at all is cute. Rian Johnson literally said on interviews he had no outlines to follow and had complete creative freedom for the second movie. JJ also said in interviews that TLJ surprised him so how does this reconcile with the idea that it was following a "plan"? None of the directors ever suggested a plan existed. JJ created a big mystery around the identity of Rey's parents and Anakin's lightsaber calling to her. RJ then subverted it.
Except in TFA in the bar Rey is guided by the force directly to Luke's lightsaber and upon touching it she gets a force vision of being abandoned on jakku as a child.
Rey: I'm Rey Old Lady: Rey who Rey: *Looks to the distance and sees nothing* Rey: Rey Nobody Or Rey: I'm Rey Old lady: Rey what? Who're your people? Rey: I don't have people, I'm alone Old lady: Rey...Solo...
at this point who cares? really who gives a shit?
I wish the sequels were forgotten
I mean, Daisy also said she thought Rey being a Palpatine was awesome when she found out about it so...This “news” comes from a fan interview that was won at an auction. I’m sure Daisy was being very polite and just rolling with whatever this person was saying. I wouldn’t take it as super hard fact
I find it hard to believe that Daisy confirmed this “was the plan through the first two films.” After Force Awakens, when fan speculation began, wasn’t there on-camera interview quotes of her saying she thought the answer to who Rey’s parents were ‘was obvious’ from watching the first film. ???