Star Wars: Episode 7, 8... and BEYOND!

[LNK]

I thought ROS was a good movie. Better than ep 7 and 8. I would've rather not seen Sidious pop up in the final film (with no hints that he was still alive in the two previous movies) but I thought he was great. With how he was portrayed in this one, it gave me a horror movie feeling every scene he was in.

I also liked

Spoiler

what happened with Rey and Kylo. Kylo doing to Rey, what Anakin intended to do for Padme, was really cool.

I wish Snoke would've turned out to be Darth Plageuis though. His theme was too close to the music played in ep 3, when Palpatine was taking to Anakin, for that not to be the case. Oh well. I still liked this trilogy better than the prequels

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I'm still laying out my thoughts on the movie. I still like it, and the more I think about it, the more I like some parts -- while disliking other parts the more I think about them.

I'll try getting my final thoughts posted sometime this weekend.

Spoiler

I would've rather not seen Sidious pop up in the final film (with no hints that he was still alive in the two previous movies) but I thought he was great. With how he was portrayed in this one, it gave me a horror movie feeling every scene he was in.

The spooky atmosphere around him was definitely a strong point of the film.

I also liked what happened with Rey and Kylo. Kylo doing to Rey, what Anakin intended to do for Padme, was really cool.

Yes, I loved that! Excellent bookend.

I wish Snoke would've turned out to be Darth Plageuis though. His theme was too close to the music played in ep 3, when Palpatine was taking to Anakin, for that not to be the case.

I suppose it's still entirely possible that Snoke was cloned from Plagueis's remains?

 

[LNK]

Thank you to whoever added the spoiler tag to my comment! I apologize to anyone who saw that without seeing the movie. How do you do that?

I'm still laying out my thoughts on the movie. I still like it, and the more I think about it, the more I like some parts -- while disliking other parts the more I think about them.

I'll try getting my final thoughts posted sometime this weekend.

Spoiler

The spooky atmosphere around him was definitely a strong point of the film.



Yes, I loved that! Excellent bookend.


I suppose it's still entirely possible that Snoke was cloned from Plagueis's remains?

Yeah, that could be possible! Sidious did kill Plageius anyway

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Thank you to whoever added the spoiler tag to my comment! I apologize to anyone who saw that without seeing the movie. How do you do that?

You put these tags around whatever you want to hide (remove the spaces when doing it for real):

[ spoiler ]Hide me[/ spoiler ]

So, without spaces, you would get:

Spoiler

Hide me

 

[LNK]

Spoiler

thank you

 

[trash panda]

Ssssssssssssssssssssooooooooooo.....

Spoiler

Ahsoka Tano('s voice) is in ROS? I had to look up the movie credits to confirm, and yep, Ashley Eckstein. So I guess now we know she's ded at this point in the timeline. But what else does this mean? I also see Kannan Jarus on the vocal credits. There are a number of other Jedi from the Clone Wars era listed there, but I'm kind of giddy about characters from the animated series being included.

Also, Dave Filoni and his cryptic messages right after ROS is released...

 

[Ite]

Oh man. That’s rough

Makes sense though. It has been a long time.

 

[Lulcielid]

Opening weekend box office

Where: How much (vs TLJ)

Domestic: $175.5M (-20.3%)
International: $198M (-13.92%)
Worldwide: $373.5M (-17%)

TRoS second weekend box office

Where: How much (vs TLJ)

Domestic: $72M (-59%)
Total domestic: $361M (-1.91%)

International: $94.3M (-52.38%)
Total International: $363M (-1.31%)

Worldwide: $361M (-3.35%)
Total Worldwide: $704.3M (-5.52%)

------
Notes: While it's making less money than TLJ overall, TRoS has lower % drops when it comes to its own weekend performance (domestically it dropped 58.9% vs TLJ 67.5%). If this trend continues, despite having comparatively better legs than TLJ, TRoS will end up making less money by the end due to opening with considerably less than its predecesor.

 

[trash panda]

Spoiler: TROS Spoilers, Star Wars Rebels Spoilers

I just realized something. Dave Filoni tweeted that Ahsoka is prrrrrrrrobably still alive with this Gandalf joke. People (me) jumped to the conclusion that because Rey heard her voice, that means she's dead. Ahsoka has been presumed dead before and she wasn't. So. Sorry I'm talking about Ahsoka so much.

It's just that...last we heard, Ahsoka was searching for Ezra Bridger with Sabine Wren. Ezra Bridger is the only "jedi" in new Canon to cross between dimensions. That is...until we saw Kylo and Rey physically interact with each other across time/space in the new trilogy. Also, Ezra Bridger had a juvenile crush on Sabine Wren. What's my point? I'm getting to it...

Not calling them the Knights of Wren was a huge missed opportunity. Ezra knew how to travel through dimensions. Ben Solo did that with Rey in TROS. Ben Solo was with the Knights of Ren.

Seriously, if it was called the Knights of Wren, we could potentially have a backstory involving Ezra Bridger, who hardcore crushed on a Mandalorian from clan Wren (Death Watch ties / Separatist loyalists pre-Siege). Ezra could have formed the Knights of Wren and taught inter-dimensional travel in his "school". Plus, last we saw Ezra, he was with Thrawn, who is like the most baddest ass Star Wars villain ever (who happens to have an extraordinary, brilliant mind for art and philosophy....oh and he's Sabine Wren fanboy as well). OH AND DID I MENTION EZRA BRIDGER HAD DARTH MAUL AS HIS "MASTER" FOR A SNIPPET OF TIME. FFS, Ezra has so many ties to Palpatine through his third-party Linkedin connections.

SUCH MISSED OPPORTUNITY

 

[Clement Rage]

Spoiler: TROS

Anakin: Hey Snips, what are you doing here?

Ahsoka: Supporting Rey, like all the other Jedi.

Anakin: Didn't you say to me before "I am no Jedi!" You were pretty emphatic about it, if I remember right.

Ahsoka: Oh, I just say that whenever the Jedi rules get in my way. I still want the perks, though.

Anakin: Huh. Wish I'd thought of that.

 

[Lex]

I've just seen this movie (very late to the party). Went to the cinema with a friend on a whim today.

I enjoyed it. It has its issues but I'll be interested to read through and find out why there's so much vitriol for it. The problems I had with it are generally small things rather than anything massive. I felt it was very "safe" which is maybe part of the problem for some people.

But then, I enjoyed the last movie so my opinion is apparently dirt when it comes to Star Wars lmaoooooo

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I just left from seeing it a second time. It definitely has to be seen more than once. It watches much better on subsequent viewings, as knowing what's coming frees up your focus from whether your expectations are met to examining how the overall construction of the narrative came together.

The movie absolutely still has its problems (I'm still writing a much longer post on TRoS's overall impressions for me), but I mostly appreciate what they put together here.

 

[Clement Rage]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ENdIeFIU8AAG1iR.png

Courtesy of Mark Hamill's Twitter

 

[Lulcielid]

Sometimes you wonder why fandom is full of morrons.

 

[Lulcielid]

Yesterday TRoS grossed $918.8M worldwide. It should be at $1B by this weekend.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Spoiler: My initial thoughts

The film hyper-focuses on resolving "important" plot threads the "fans" needed to know at the expense of meaningfully concluding its own trilogy, having its own important story or message, mistaking screen time for character development, and completely missing the thematic arc of The Skywalker Saga itself. Much like Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness, it is composed of an absolutely gorgeous series of vignettes that utterly fail to string together into a solid narrative, and feels less stable the closer you look at it. If it feels rushed, it's because the camera absolutely refuses to pause, and the pacing gives zero time to breathe or absorb anything, and all of the sacrifices are temporary or don't carry any weight.

I'm still digesting everything from it, but while most of Star Wars understands that it's most important audience are 12-year-olds, my initial gut reaction is that this is the film that feels most like it was written BY them, and not FOR them. The film thoroughly understands the moments that resonate with Star Wars' audience, but they are all knowingly presented to you because it so clearly wants to satisfy your desires and know that you know that they know that this is for YOU. There is also no film that fundamentally misses every single point of Star Wars' core story more thoroughly than this film either. Like the kid ditching his close friends for the popular crowd, this all resulted in a film so desperate not to be disliked by everyone, that it lost any individuality and real heart that it may have ever possessed, which was the only thing that actually made Star Wars great in the first place.

After a back-to-back rewatch of all 10 films before seeing The Rise of Skywalker, I got a whole new appreciation of the films and the story, and then coming in to that theater, I've never felt like any other film so thoroughly missed the mark. There are other Star Wars films with FAR worse acting, editing, and directing, but looking at the core story and thematic soul of everything that makes it what it is, this film is hands down the worst Star Wars film to date for me, and nothing else even comes close.

I'm hoping I can find some ways to enjoy it, because there's so much I want to like, but at the moment, it absolutely failed to connect to any single facet of what I enjoy about Star Wars. I've got some reviewers whose positive takes I'm looking forward to hearing before attempting a rewatch to see if there's something that's there in a way that can sort of pull things together, but it feels like a lot of other folks feel the same way I did.

tl;dr – This video hits pretty much every single one of my thoughts on the film:

Additionally, these two Twitter threads are ones I've felt like I got some little extras out of that have given me more appreciation that I want to take into a second viewing to see what all I can square with the movie.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1213112901747109897

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1213872456617906177

X

 

[Tetsujin]

Basically yeah, what X said

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

For those interested in the topic of "Did Starkiller Base used to be Ilum?":

That's from the Visual Dictionary for TRoS.

On a related note, a young man named Riley Howell died last April at UNC Charlotte, my alma mater, trying to stop a gunman. Apparently he was a lifelong "Star Wars" fanatic and had what people close to him called "an encyclopedic knowledge" of the franchise. Lucasfilm has honored Riley in the new Visual Dictionary by naming a character after him, a Jedi Master and historian:

 

[Clement Rage]

Awww, that's nice.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Been meaning to ask if anyone else caught this during the ending:

Spoiler

It appears that someone else successfully performed The Holdo Maneuver after all.

 

[Roger]

Been meaning to ask if anyone else caught this during the ending:

Spoiler

It appears that someone else successfully performed The Holdo Maneuver after all.

Yup, those Ewoks, resourceful little critters, aren't they?

 

[Lulcielid]

After some extra days of thoughts here's how I'd rank the 9 mainline movies:



Less about thier "objective quality" but how much I enjoy them (although there's some overlap). As a whole I got more enjoyment out of the ST (or Disney's SW as a whole if we include RO & Solo) and while I prefer the PT over the OT on a theme and subtext level the watching experience can be emotionally detached for most of its run because the flimmaking does little to elevated the story compared to the OT & ST (specially the later) and coming back to them, has been a tough pill to swallow. RoTS manages to be slightly above TESB because it has a stronger story and has overall stronger filmmaking than Ep1 & 2 but, still weaker than any of Disney's SW, Ep4 & 5 but is more or less on par with RoTJ.

For TRoS to be success it only needed to be better than RoTJ, narratively, and it did that and I call it a success. It may not have been the 10/10 success I hoped but successeding with an 8/10 is not bad and is a far cry from being a failure.

Interested on what's lurking beyond the saga.

 

[Lord Noctis]

My ranking right now would be something like

TLJ
ROTS
ESB
TFA
ROTJ
ANH
ROS
AOTC
TPM.

Rogue One would between episodes II and IX, and Solo between IV and VI. Episodes I and II are the only ones I don't like. If we want to count the 2008 clone wars movie, then that one goes on the bottom of the list.

 

[Lulcielid]

There's one Leia scenes that was played by Carrie's daughter Billie using a combination of CG & RoTJ archive footage.

At first I though that scenes was a full CG Leia (ala RO), quite a nice surprise.

Spoilers of course.

 

[Glaurung]

Well... just watched TROS the other day. Basically what X-Soldier said, plus:

Spoiler: Narrative and personal issues with the script

It didn't feel lke a movie for 12 yo kids, but one made by a 12 yo where he's playing which his action figures, making characters appear and die at whim and out of the blue. The story was compelling enough in the first movie of the trilogy, but they got derailed somehow, and we were left with a third movie that, personally, didn't satisfy and left me cold as ice.

It was a good plot point making Rey a Palpatine, but there wasn't hinted anywhere that the old geezer might appear or have any influence. I have great tolerance for asspulls, and I always play along, but this movie, I shit you not, got me facepalming several times.

I know about the controversy, but only in passing, and I've been thanfully oblivious to all the wars over the script and how Rey was managed, so I don't know what kind of movies we could had with no external influence and/or whining form hardcore fans, or those who don't care about any fandom and only want to know that every single media product conforms to their view of what's acceptable/what's not.

Don't know. I wanted to like the movie, and I did during the action sequences, though I cringed at the sword fights with that reverse grip (seriously? You wanted Rey to disarm you, right Benny boy? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ) but, though entertaining, it left me just as before watching it... kinda what happened with Civil War.

Ok, just my two cents to the debate.