Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

[Malaky]

Maybe there's a clue in the movie title.... hm, what was it... ah, the force awakens.
Nothing is impossible when Force is concerned. Star Wars Rule #1.

"It's magic!"

Bullshit Excuse for Shitty Writing #1 more like.
Just because fantasy elements exist in the setting doesn't mean they don't need adhere to their own internal consistency.

[Elim Garak]

"It's magic!"

Bullshit Excuse for Shitty Writing #1 more like.
Just because fantasy elements exist in the setting doesn't mean they don't need adhere to their own internal consistency.

The Force is the magic of Star Wars. It's perfectly consistent. Because it can do ANYTHING. Just because something new happens - doesn't mean it's inconsistent.

"They just copied the ANH! Much original Such wow!" vs "We have never seen Force work that way! Blasphemy!"

The irony? Same people.

[Fayolynn]

The Force is the magic of Star Wars. It's perfectly consistent. Because it can do ANYTHING. Just because something new happens - doesn't mean it's inconsistent.

"They just copied the ANH! Much original Such wow!" vs "We have never seen Force work that way! Blasphemy!"

The irony? Same people.

It's still a bullshit excuse because it removes all tension from the film. After a certain point having your hero solve everything with "magic powers that can do anything" stops being entertaining and starts being shitty writing.

[Elim Garak]

It's still a bullshit excuse because it removes all tension from the film. After a certain point having your hero solve everything with "magic powers that can do anything" stops being entertaining and starts being shitty writing.

I dunno, I'm just intrigued by this and want to know what it's all about. I'm quite tense with anticipation. I'm sorry you can't enjoy it the way I can.

There are two sides with magic powers - so I fail to see the problem you are having with it. It seems like classical writing.

[Malaky]

The Force is the magic of Star Wars. It's perfectly consistent. Because it can do ANYTHING. Just because something new happens - doesn't mean it's inconsistent.

This is nothing but the whole "it's magic!" fallacy.

We've been shown that jedi in order to be competent and proactively direct their powers they need some training and tutoring, expecially for the advanced stuff.
Rey is pulling everything out of nowhere without care or a shred of any consistency with the first trilogy.

"They just copied the ANH! Much original Such wow!" vs "We have never seen Force work that way! Blasphemy!"
The irony? Same people.

"What do you mean you don't like this? You said you hated pizza every dinner so we just served you a dog turd, why are you still not happy?!"

Different <> good.
Another fallacy.

[Scrandir]

If Rey has flaws the movie did a shit job at portraying them, because she comes off as near perfect at everything to the viewers.

Yeah that time she nearly decapitated a frog nun with a lightsaber made her come across as a model of competence.

Did it ever occur to you that you just might be a stupid person that can't detect nuance and/or someone who parrots alt.right youtube videos without much understanding of what you are saying?

[Elim Garak]

This is nothing but the whole "it's magic!" fallacy.

It's not a fallacy if it's a fact. It is magic.

We've been shown that jedi in order to be competent and proactively direct their powers they need some training and tutoring, expecially for the advanced stuff.
Rey is pulling everything out of nowhere without care or a shred of any consistency with the first trilogy.

All I see in this: those Jedi needed training and tutoring, Rey can learn on her own.
There are people like that IRL
Consistent.

Different <> good.
Another fallacy.

The critique is not that it's bad, but that it's new and therefore bad. Now that's a fallacy.

Good/Bad is subjective, therefore I'm sorry you can't enjoy it.

[Malaky]

It's not a fallacy if it's a fact. It is magic.

Not an excuse.
This sort of logic is no different than "If magic exists in LOTR why didn't Gandalf just teleport to Mt.Doom and throw the One Ring into the lava???"

Answer: because magic isn't an excuse for "anything goes". That's just shallow interpretation of how fantasy elements work in a fantasy setting.

All I see in this: those Jedi needed training and tutoring, Rey can learn on her own.
There are people like that IRL
Consistent.

Sure, if you're willing to abandon what consistent means. If you don't know what the word entails.

The critique is not that it's bad, but that it's new and therefore bad.

Another fallacy, this time a strawman.
Nobody's attacking Rey because she's new, but because of the asspulls contradictory to the original trilogy that she constantly pulls.

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Yeah that time she nearly decapitated a frog nun with a lightsaber made her come across as a model of competence.
Did it ever occur to you that you just might be a stupid person that can't detect nuance and/or someone who parrots alt.right youtube videos without much understanding of what you are saying?

Oh, sure.
But perhaps I'm just a normal person with a set of eyes and a working brain not muddled by political hatred for the "alt-right".

You know, the kind who can see the difference between a "joke" scene where Rey almost decapitates the cute frog nun to make the kids laugh, and actual narrative failure, like Luke losing an arm in a fight he clearly wasn't ready for and ending up in depression soon after.

But hey, I'm sure I'm the stupid person here.

[TheFirstOnes]

There is no set levels force users are suppose to have it Varys from person to person.

Rey also looks to be about the same age as anakin in attack of the clones and her and kylo are stronger then he was. I don’t see any reason anakin couldn’t lift rocks in attack of the clones.

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Manipulating the force doesn’t take years of training in either the old or new canon, Mabye for some fancier things but force lifting and force pulling are basic things untrained force users can do easily.

The only thing that rey does which is kinda bull is the mind trick, force lifting/pulling aren’t out of the realm of even children with no training.

You're trying to argue that she's above Anakin because of her "Force potential" and shit. Even though, you can have a ton of force powers, but you won't be able to do shit with it unless you train. Why else did you think Anakin trained so hard? "I don’t see any reason anakin couldn’t lift rocks in attack of the clones." Anakin could do that because he was trained. After YEARS of training, he was finally able to reach the levels of someone like Obi Wan Kenobi (If not, surpass him). Luke, after a couple months of training, became a pretty great Jedi, but he wasn't fully on the level of someone like Darth Vader (Though he did win, Vader didn't want to slay Luke, like at all).

Rey doesn't even have a weeks worth of training under her belt, and apparently her power/potential surpasses that of even Jedi masters and their teachings. Are you fucking serious?

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Says who?


That's Jedi training for you. It suppresses your raw power because of the Dark Side. Had Papa Palpatine got his hands on Anakin right after Phantom Menace...

Anakin was building a droid on his own, he built his own pod-racer, and he was good at pod-racing, he took down the Trade Federation blockade of Naboo - by doing absolutely nothing. If that's not the Raw Force Power, I don't know what is in Star Wars.

"Says who?"

Says everything Star Wars ever prior to the new films. Look it up, buddy.

"That's Jedi training for you. It suppresses your raw power because of the Dark Side. Had Papa Palpatine got his hands on Anakin right after Phantom Menace..."

Except, the Dark Side enhanced his abilities to far greater extent (Mostly due to the fact that Dark Side is empowered by rage and emotion), while Jedi training is more about finding ones inner self, hence making their abilities less focused on power, but more on body and spirit.

"Anakin was building a droid on his own, he built his own pod-racer, and he was good at pod-racing" He was a bright kid. Not about the Force.

"he took down the Trade Federation blockade of Naboo - by doing absolutely nothing. If that's not the Raw Force Power, I don't know what is in Star Wars." Watch the Phantom Menace again, that was NEVER due to his Force abilities. The only thing Force related was the idea that Anakin was speculated to be the chosen one due to his "potential". He was a 1 out of a million kid, and even then he needed to train for about 20 years just to reach Jedi "Master" levels of power. And even then, he never became a Jedi Master.

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"It's not a fallacy if it's a fact. It is magic."

The Force isn't Magic though. Idk why you said that.

[Frontenac]

This is nothing but the whole "it's magic!" fallacy.

We've been shown that jedi in order to be competent and proactively direct their powers they need some training and tutoring, expecially for the advanced stuff.
Rey is pulling everything out of nowhere without care or a shred of any consistency with the first trilogy.

But she's not really competent and not really proactive about it. On the contrary, she seems to struggle when she consciously wants to connect with the Force, and when she does, she has some problems controling it. She almost destroys the cliff where Luke and her are training when she connects with the Force. The Force comes to her far more easily when she is in danger and dire need of it. It seems to be more of an instinct than anything. Like Aang in A:TLA who could enter the Avatar state when in need but couldn't do it willingly before his training with Guru Patik.

The Mandalorian has (spoiler but I bet everyone knows) a baby of Yoda's species lift a giant rhino-beast. A baby! And I haven't heard any complaints about it. But lifting some rocks? Oh! The heresy!

[SirCowdog]

Maybe there's a clue in the movie title.... hm, what was it... ah, the force awakens.

Nothing is impossible when Force is concerned. Star Wars Rule #1.

That's a great lore way to handwave away all criticism. But when viewed by the audience without any in-movie explanation, it makes very little sense and creates a sense of confusion. Or, for those familiar with writing, it creates a Mary Sue(which is what Rey is).

Which is the point here. It's all very well and good to claim, after the fact, that "The force let her do it". But none of that was explained within the context of the movie. That's why the scene where she defeats Kylo was a WTF moment. That's why every time she does something that she shouldn't be able to normally do, it's a WTF moment.

Even when Leia flew through the void of space it was a WTF moment. Veteran Star Wars fans might recognize the ability to create a force bubble around a person to survive the vacuum, but veteran Star Wars fans also would know that's the ability of a master, something Leia was not. There was a cut piece of the story where Luke was shown to have been training Leia....but that was CUT, and not part of the shown story.

Episodes 7 and 8 are filled with these kinds of moments. Things which don't make sense within the context of Legends, or things which come out of the blue with no explanation within the cannon of the movie itself.

It makes for bad storytelling.

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All I see in this: those Jedi needed training and tutoring, Rey can learn on her own.
There are people like that IRL
Consistent.

Not really. If it was consistent, then the movie would have shown her actually spending time "learning on her own" instead of pulling anything and everything out of thin air with no prior examples, training, practice, or attempts.

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The Mandalorian has (spoiler but I bet everyone knows) a baby of Yoda's species lift a giant rhino-beast. A baby! And I haven't heard any complaints about it. But lifting some rocks? Oh! The heresy!

Do you know what baby yoda didn't do? Force persuade a storm trooper, or defeat a highly trained dark side apprentice who's also powerful in the force and has years of lightsaber training.

There's a difference between lashing out with raw power in a moment of panic, and using abilities which require years of practice and fine control by masters of the art. If Rey had blown Kylo away from her in an outburst of emotion after seeing Finn cut down, that would be one thing. If she panicked at the fear of being tortured when captured by Kylo, and blasted out of her restraints with raw power, ok, also fine.

But that's not what actually happened.

People aren't mad that Rey is powerful. People are mad because her character does inconsistent and inexplicable things that aren't consistent with anything in Legends or Cannon.

[Nefarious Tea]

"It's not a fallacy if it's a fact. It is magic."

The Force isn't Magic though. Idk why you said that.

It literally is, though. From a functional and mechanical standpoint the Force is just a soft magic system with no specific rules about usage, other than:

1. Not everyone can
2. More training = more proficient

Not that I'm disagreeing with you otherwise.

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But she's not really competent and not really proactive about it. On the contrary, she seems to struggle when she consciously wants to connect with the Force, and when she does, she has some problems controling it. She almost destroys the cliff where Luke and her are training when she connects with the Force. The Force comes to her far more easily when she is in danger and dire need of it. It seems to be more of an instinct than anything. Like Aang in A:TLA who could enter the Avatar state when in need but couldn't do it willingly before his training with Guru Patik.

The Mandalorian has (spoiler but I bet everyone knows) a baby of Yoda's species lift a giant rhino-beast. A baby! And I haven't heard any complaints about it. But lifting some rocks? Oh! The heresy!

You want to know why? Because it was established in pre-disney Star Wars that every member of Yoda's species is strongly Force-sensitive. Just like the Rakata and pureblood Sith were. The incidence of Force-sensitivity in a few rare species is very close to 100%, and indeed it doesn't even have to require sentience: there was a species of lizard from one of the novels that used the Force as kind of an instinctual semi-camouflage system.

[PACOX]

It literally is, though. From a functional and mechanical standpoint the Force is just a soft magic system with no specific rules about usage, other than:

1. Not everyone can
2. More training = more proficient

Not that I'm disagreeing with you otherwise.

I'm not so sure about that. New canon makes it seem like the Force is a fundamental 'force' within the SW galaxy that every one has the potential use by only a select few are sensitive enough to consciously manipulate it. That's the way Luke spoke of it.

A normal person might 'use' the Force by mistake and chop it up to luck, Hans luck, Chirrut's last stand in Rogue One.

What training allows a Jedi/Sith to is better wield/manipulate the Force. The are still capped by what they can 'see'. Example, Anakin was always stronger than Obi but Obi knew how to wield the Force better when they fought, therefore Anakin got sliced n diced.

[Nefarious Tea]

I'm not so sure about that. New canon makes it seem like the Force is a fundamental 'force' within the SW galaxy that every one has the potential use by only a select few are sensitive enough to consciously manipulate it. That's the way Luke spoke of it.

A normal person might 'use' the Force by mistake and chop it up to luck, Hans luck, Chirrut's last stand in Rogue One.

What training allows a Jedi/Sith to is better wield/manipulate the Force. The are still capped by what they can 'see'. Example, Anakin was always stronger than Obi but Obi knew how to wield the Force better when they fought, therefore Anakin got sliced n diced.

Everything you wrote still describes magic. In fact, replace the names and it could be Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings, or Avatar: The Last Airbender, or a thousand other fantasy settings.

I'm not saying that what you wrote is wrong regarding the Force, but in terms of narrative and world design, the Force is just magic with a different skin.

Also just for note, but it's heavily implied that Chirrut Imwe was a former Jedi hiding from the Empire.

[Skroe]

I'll freely admit that they botched the world-building when it comes to the First Order.

The entire sequel trilogy has been a creative / world building mess from the get go.

I think we need to re-look at how they came about to understand why.

Disney buys Star Wars for $4 billion from George "my Estate will be commanded to make no more Star Wars movies" Lucas (hilariously proving every man has his price) and on the same day announces a Sequel Trilogy. Let's consider what Disney had bought absent that sequel trilogy - three lauded movies made in late 1970s / early 1980s, three very controversial (at best) prequel movies from 1999-2005, a merchandising line based on those combined six movies, all of which have aging actors and closed story lines, and some miscellania like Clone Wars, the Expanded Universe and so forth.

In the age of the MCU, sequelitus and soft reboots, there was no way Disney was going to ever let their $4 billion investment have its foundation in six saga movies, and and maybe some spin-offs like what Rogue One became, or a KOTOR movie or something. They bought the core Star Wars? So what do they do with it? Reboot it.

My personal, completely gut feeling is that the directive towards creative was for the Sequel Trilogy to return to the most marketable status quo ante RoTJ. Basically reboot it, but without doing a hard reboot. So we get "Team Red", the very Empire-like First Order, that isn't quite the Empire, but have Apple-ized Storm Troopers and only the classic Tie Fighters. And they have a planet-sized superweapon totally not the Death Star. And we also get "Team Blue", the Resistance (nee 'the Rebellion') that specializes in flying X-Wings. And the core characters are a dark jedi like character who wears a mask and has a cool light saber, and three humans, one of whom is a jedi-in-training, one of whom is a rogue, and one of whom is an ace pilot. It's the original trilogy core-trio mixed up.

The Force Awakens was a soft-reboot in a sense, basically retelling the big beats of the assembled saga, particularly ANH, with a "next generation" twist. But all the iconic parts of Star Wars was there. Star Wars, in it's most simplistic form. Tie Fighters, Death Stars, X-Wings, Jedis, the Force Storm troopers, Rebellion and Empire.

If Star Wars had been less of a beloved series, I believe Disney would have rebooted it, much as JJ Abrams did Star Trek. Yeah sure they hooked Star Trek into the Prime Universe with Leonard Nimoy and some Narada nonsense. But really, they wanted to make a movie about the most iconic Star Trek crew in order to reinvigorate the movie franchise, and not elevate a TV crew or make an all-new crew or be bogged down by continuity. When Disney dropped $4 billion with the purpose of introducing a new generation of kids into Star Wars, the most sensible course would have been to retell the Luke-Leia-Han-Vader story. In sequel trilogy, they kind of got to do that, at least for the marketing side of things, which is the core of the Star Wars franchise (which, let's face it, has it's best stuff in the parts of the franchise that are not the saga movies).

The problem is, JJ Abrams is a self indulgent director with little discipline and no proclivity to plan anything. He was bad for Star Trek and he's been generally bad for Star Wars. I get that his whole shickt is the nostalgia of his Gen Xer child-hood (Super8, Cloverfield, TFA was all that nonsense), but pretty much everything he touches is defined by the massive plot holes and poor planning it has in it.

Abrams is dismissive of this. He thinks that movies and TV show explain too much and that his works are better for the imagination that the mystery of not knowing provides. For that he eschews what he sees as "infodumps" or clear explanations. I think that's a load of horse shit. I think that's a fairly sloppy director-producer who, like Michael Bay, is trying to rationalize away his creative weaknesses. Certainly many stories and franchies where "everything is connected" and "everything is explained" is self indulgent. But with Star Wars, it is quite clear he had no idea who Rey's parents were, or who Snoke was, or who where the First Order really came from, or even what the "New Republic" was. It was left to the standing plot committee at Lucasfilm to tie everything together in TLJ and other media.

I think the collective creative failure if the sequel trilogy is best typified by Rey and Poe meeting each other in the very last scene of TLJ. And this next film, the end of the trilogy, we're supposed to lament these characters never being together on the screen again? Rey has had about two days of adventures with Finn and known Poe for five minutes. These characters did not grow and change and experience things like the original trilogy trio did, so when they go away, why should we care? We're not invested in them individually or as a group at all. It's the story of three strangers who seemingly had two eventful weekends together.

This could have been avoided. TLJ never should have taken place about half an hour after the end of TFA. They never should have been broken up for the entire movie. TLJ should have spend substantial time cleaning up the plot holes TFA and Abrams' sloppiness created.

I think by the end of RoS, it'll almost have been like TLJ was really "TFA Part II", and what's missing is an actual sequel where things of consequence happen that change and build the characters and world builds in between TFA and RoS.

Disney has clearly grown and matured in handling the franchise since the TFA was made. Rogue One is a very good movie - probably the best Star Wars movie that isn't Empire Strikes Back. It has a discipline TFA didn't despite being what happens a week prior to ANH. Star Was Rebels was excellent. The Mandalorian is excellent. Solo got a bad rap and everyone involved did what they could with a movie whose lead wasn't up to the challenge (among its many problems).

It won't take much for RoS to be the best of the sequel trilogy, but I can't help but think that if they were starting the sequel trilogy now, after what they've learned handling, and with someone other than JJ Abrams at the wheel, the final product would have been the sequel series we deserved.

So where does Star Wars go from here? I think in a few years they need to plan a new trilogy - a new numbered saga of its own starting from "Episode I" either set far in the future beyond RoS or far in the past. And they need to plan the shit out of the saga with internal continuity like they do Marvel movies (since after Phase 1) and stick to it.


The creative failure of the sequels is indiciative of how much a mistake it was to get a director-producer who thought that everything he touches turns to gold and fucks up the product. This contrasts to the Marvel approach that has a "house style" of sorts (much like Marvel comics at one time) that they get up-and-coming or only modestly-proven directors to apply within Feige's creative constraints. Imagine what a JJ Abrams helmed "New Avengers" movie would look like? It would probably break the whole fucking thing.

I think the most accurate observation made about the MCU is that it's basically a 23 episode serialized big-budget TV show. You have to go to the theater to see it, but it's been up to this point, generally one big story and you pay to see the latest episode. And that, with the "House style" of the MCU, is why the movies feel generally similar. Directors coming in accept those constraints and work with the freedom they have. Star Wars didn't have that, and we got a mess. It really needs to have that kind of approach going forward for "major entries", and with the world building that comes with it. It should leave "let directors do what they want" to one offs. This is all especially ironic because Star Wars was founded as a tribute to serialized space adventure.

[Wewlad]

The Force is the magic of Star Wars. It's perfectly consistent. Because it can do ANYTHING. Just because something new happens - doesn't mean it's inconsistent.

"They just copied the ANH! Much original Such wow!" vs "We have never seen Force work that way! Blasphemy!"

The irony? Same people.

Kylo Ren stopping a blaster bolt was interesting and original. Constant plot armor and Deus Ex Machina is not. Stop trying to obfuscate.

[RobertoCarlos]

John boyega (finn) seems determined to end his career doing press for this film. First he leaked a script and had the lamest excuse for it. The boys came over so we partied! I bet Disney execs loved that. Now he's ragging on disney+ saying they wont disney+ his characters he's feature films only!

What an idiot. Dude will be begging for a streaming show when the only interest in his career is where are they now videos on youtube

[PACOX]

Also just for note, but it's heavily implied that Chirrut Imwe was a former Jedi hiding from the Empire.

Chirrut wasn't an exiled Jedi nor force-sensitive. His order shared common ground with the Jedi but they were separate. Well I guess he is force-sensitive because he believes in the Force, making him aware of it, like a squib in HP, but he is unable to use it.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

You're trying to argue that she's above Anakin because of her "Force potential" and shit. Even though, you can have a ton of force powers, but you won't be able to do shit with it unless you train. Why else did you think Anakin trained so hard? "I don’t see any reason anakin couldn’t lift rocks in attack of the clones." Anakin could do that because he was trained. After YEARS of training, he was finally able to reach the levels of someone like Obi Wan Kenobi (If not, surpass him). Luke, after a couple months of training, became a pretty great Jedi, but he wasn't fully on the level of someone like Darth Vader (Though he did win, Vader didn't want to slay Luke, like at all).

Rey doesn't even have a weeks worth of training under her belt, and apparently her power/potential surpasses that of even Jedi masters and their teachings. Are you fucking serious?

We already know from the OT that when it comes to things like force lifting you don’t need a ton of training that’s why he try’s to get luke to do it early on and is disappointed when Luke fails because of his own mental blocks. We then know from the prequels and the clone wars that force lifting is something they teach 6 year olds so it’s not like you need a great understanding of the force to do it.

Yes you have to train to master the force but it has been shown pretty much every where that the basic stuff like force pulling/lifting you can do without any training and that the strength of it is not determined by how much you train. Rey being able to do a mind trick raising questions but others then that nothing else does.

[Wewlad]

These kinds of complaints are hilarious when it comes to star wars, which always had plot armor and Deus Ex Machina built in.

Tropes can be used well or poorly. At the end of the day, Luke went through a lot more hardship than Rey did, and any miraculous moments still came from the characters rather than complete asspulls.