***Spoilers*** Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

[Malfatron]

I think Palp shot his dark force into space and inpregnated them

[MWil23]

7 minutes ago, MikeT14 said:

Great points throughout. Don't agree with all of them, but I think your first big paragraph is spot on. This trilogy isn't what I wanted for Luke, but I thought Episode 8 handled him well in that regard.

One of my biggest frustrations, to be honest, was that Poe went from "Han Solo wannabe" to "Wreckless leader not trusted by the Rebellion Inner Circle" to "Leader of the entire Rebellion" in roughly 3 hours.

[THE DUKE]

15 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

One of my biggest frustrations, to be honest, was that Poe went from "Han Solo wannabe" to "Wreckless leader not trusted by the Rebellion Inner Circle" to "Leader of the entire Rebellion" in roughly 3 hours.

To be fair, most of the previous leadership were killed off in TLJ, somebody has to do it.

I'm still salty they created Holdo as a character to do the lightspeed ram and just killed of Ackbar in Leah's space flying scene.  It should have been Ackbar to do it.

[BleedTheClock]

I was secretly hoping for a crazy shift in tone.

I wanted Kylo Ren to kill everyone and lead to having a new supervillain. He was a good villain, but he didn't have quite the steam that Vader did. Having him murk everyone would have given you the biggest villain ever. Whoever the next hero was would be the most rooted for character of all time.

I don't know...I liked every Star Wars movie I've ever seen, but I wouldn't re-watch a single one outside of Rogue One. I am not a big Star Wars guy to be honest. I'm also not married to the original films which I think helps me enjoy the newer ones.

 

The Mandolorian and Rogue One are my two favorite Star Wars productions.

 

Execute me if you want, but I feel like the Guardians of the Galaxy is a better version of Star Wars.

[Broncofan]

Honestly, I get that fans hate the lack of continuity with RoS, but TLJ was the real issue IMO.   I still don't buy Luke's sudden turn to need to kill off his pupil with 1 vision, but I accepted that it wasn't going to change once written in.  However, the need to re-do some of the other major plot holes TLJ created continuity-wise was necessary.  With Snoke's death, they needed a big bad, as the plan for Ben's redemption was planted firmly in TFA, and simply set aside.   Agree that Palpatine's return should have been inserted as a foreboding in TLJ to make it less forced in RoS - but again, that's on TLJ.    And Rey's lineage was always going to be a point that needed a better fix than "came from no one special".    

The only 2 issues I had with RoS were the Palpatine insertion without context (but again, that's on TLJ for not creating a context that makes it more believable), and the Rey-Ben final scene.  THAT was solely for fan service and mainstream storytelling.   Redemption-arc wise, I thought Driver did a fantastic job, TBH.   I also thought Ridley was strong in this ep.   And for all the possible endings for Leia, I thought they came up with the one that was the most organic - one last effort to save both her son and the Rebellion.   

Honestly, given the horrible continuity / plot hole issues TLJ created from TFA, RoS was either going to have to continue some brutal decisions, or retcon enough plot holes that short of 3.5 hours, it wasn't going to be a grand finale without major plot issues, or feel like new characters were short-changed.   It's why my expectations for it were far lower than TLJ.   Given that, I have no problem with it - as many have pointed out, the real issue is the overall lack of direction for the 3 eps.   Given the mess that RoS faced, I actually was pleasantly surprised.   It won't be a classic by any means, but man, it did a better job of fixing the mess TLJ created.  

Edited January 7, 2020 by Broncofan

[Deadpulse]

6 minutes ago, Broncofan said:

And Rey's lineage was always going to be a point that needed a better fix than "came from no one special".    

I dont understand this point. Han Solo was a nobody until he became somebody. It is a MUCH better story when a character is built up by their own merits and not some forced familial tie. 

[Broncofan]

47 minutes ago, Deadpulse said:

I dont understand this point. Han Solo was a nobody until he became somebody. It is a MUCH better story when a character is built up by their own merits and not some forced familial tie. 

TLJ made it pretty clear that Rey's parental loss was sudden and unexplained.    For her to have such Force powers naturally before even taking any major training, then to say her parents came from nowhere special, was a terrible decision in TLJ, given Ep7's narrative.   Part of the major flaws in continuity.    I'm not referring to character-building, the parental throwaway line in Ep8 negated everything Ep7 was clearly foreshadowing.   It didn't have to be Palpatine, or Skywalker, but it made way more sense than Ep8's explanation. 

You don't need to come from special parentage to be a hero, that's not my point at all.    When you make someone that powerful in the Force without any formal training, and have the clear callback scenes to a sudden parental loss without explanation in Ep7 - you have to do better than a throwaway "they were nothing special" line.   That's my point.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Broncofan

[Calvert28]

57 minutes ago, Deadpulse said:

I dont understand this point. Han Solo was a nobody until he became somebody. It is a MUCH better story when a character is built up by their own merits and not some forced familial tie. 

The problem with Rey from the start was that she was so powerful and learned so quickly. That's where all of them started, Abrams tried explaining it off that it was a "dyad" but that should have been established in the first film with a better explanation and more struggle. 

[Broncofan]

2 minutes ago, Calvert28 said:

The problem with Rey from the start was that she was so powerful and learned so quickly. That's where all of them started, Abrams tried explaining it off that it was a "dyad" but that should have been established in the first film with a better explanation and more struggle. 

Given that Rey didn’t encounter another Jedi until the end of TFA / all of TLJ, I don’t have a problem with the lack of explanation then.  The whole point of TFA was to show how natural she was and the hints of power that lay beneath.   A direct link to Ben wasn’t needed that soon.     But yeah to ignore it completely and throw away 1 line in Ep8 was horrifically bad arc writing.   Which then required the retcon that seems so out of line with TLJ - but actually aligns very well with TFA. 
 

I’m guessing if Abrams was at the helm for Ep8 and we had writer continuity for Ep7-9 it wouldn’t have been the mess it ended up being.   Kennedy & co. really screwed the pooch on this one. 

[Calvert28]

4 minutes ago, Broncofan said:

Given that Rey didn’t encounter another Jedi until the end of TFA / all of TLJ, I don’t have a problem with the lack of explanation then.  The whole point of TFA was to show how natural she was and the hints of power that lay beneath.   A direct link to Ben wasn’t needed that soon.     But yeah to ignore it completely and throw away 1 line in Ep8 was horrifically bad arc writing.   Which then required the retcon that seems so out of line with TLJ - but actually aligns very well with TFA. 
 

I’m guessing if Abrams was at the helm for Ep8 and we had writer continuity for Ep7-9 it wouldn’t have been the mess it ended up being.   Kennedy & co. really screwed the pooch on this one. 

I agree they could have left it somewhat mysterious with Ben and Snoke questioning why is she developing so fast. 

After what Abrams did with RoS though, her parents might as well have been no bodies. Would have made a more interesting story.

[Broncofan]

9 minutes ago, Calvert28 said:

I agree they could have left it somewhat mysterious with Ben and Snoke questioning why is she developing so fast. 

After what Abrams did with RoS though, her parents might as well have been no bodies. Would have made a more interesting story.

Abrams was left with awful choices.   And not enough time.   It was never going to be a perfectly cohesive story.   This is all on Kennedy & co. for the setup.   If you plan out a trilogy, you need a story board for all 3 that makes sense.   Pretty clear they didn't.    RoS basically had 2 choices - continue with TLJ's choices, that made no sense with TFA, or retcon and get back on track.   Neither would have created a classically great ending.    It's why I had such low expectations for RoS TBH.  Maybe that's also why I'm not that fussed about RoS's holes.   A necessary outcome to fix the damage done by TLJ's numerous continuity / plot choices.

Without getting too off-topic - MCU faced this issue with the Thor storyline after Thor 2 - but they had a whole movie to retcon Thor 2, and that wasn't the ending piece, it was a transition to Endgame.   Not surprising that they did a much better job at fixing the damage to the Thor Universe because of that.   SW had no shot here, given they had to fix major holes AND conclude the trilogy.  

Edited January 7, 2020 by Broncofan

[Deadpulse]

31 minutes ago, Calvert28 said:

The problem with Rey from the start was that she was so powerful and learned so quickly. That's where all of them started, Abrams tried explaining it off that it was a "dyad" but that should have been established in the first film with a better explanation and more struggle. 

Right, because living on her own as a scavenger she never utilized her innate abilities at all. 

[Calvert28]

11 minutes ago, Broncofan said:

Abrams was left with awful choices.   And not enough time.   It was never going to be a perfectly cohesive story.   This is all on Kennedy & co. for the setup.   If you plan out a trilogy, you need a story board for all 3 that makes sense.   Pretty clear they didn't.    RoS basically had 2 choices - continue with TLJ's choices, that made no sense with TFA, or retcon and get back on track.   Neither would have created a classically great ending.    It's why I had such low expectations for RoS TBH.  Maybe that's also why I'm not that fussed about RoS's holes.   A necessary outcome to fix the damage done by TLJ's numerous continuity / plot choices.

Without getting too off-topic - MCU faced this issue with the Thor storyline after Thor 2 - but they had a whole movie to retcon Thor 2, and that wasn't the ending piece, it was a transition to Endgame.   Not surprising that they did a much better job at fixing the damage to the Thor Universe because of that.   SW had no shot here, given they had to fix major holes AND conclude the trilogy.  

Which I still believe all of this could have been saved had Iger given the command of making another 3 where Rise of Skywalker (pick another name that's not so stupid) where they in a equally terrifying foe from the the EU like Abeloth. Ben can still get his redemption, Rey doesn't have to be the contradicting Chosen One and can be a new Obi Wan, and they get someone who can actually out class Palpatine as a big baddy. 

I would have taken that approach. That and firing Kennedy.

[Calvert28]

2 minutes ago, Deadpulse said:

Right, because living on her own as a scavenger she never utilized her innate abilities at all. 

Lmao are you actually suggesting that because she had to live on her own that developing her force powers were made easier? Really?

 

[naptownskinsfan]

2 hours ago, Deadpulse said:

I dont understand this point. Han Solo was a nobody until he became somebody. It is a MUCH better story when a character is built up by their own merits and not some forced familial tie. 

Han Solo isn't Force Sensitive though, and that's the big difference.