Had viewing #2 last night and it was awesome. The wife loved it as well. I feel like some people are being a bit hard on the movie, but who knows, I thought the same about TLJ...
I love the old movies, but do think that a bit of brand mythos has built up with this series, which has triggered a great deal of nostalgia for pretty much everyone that goes in to these new movies and tries to judge them through a rational lens. I find this can swing both ways and cause people to either over or underrate something in the SW universe - for example I find that Mandalorian, although fun, is getting a bit more praise than it deserves and as a straight TV show wouldn't be on the radar without the SW branding tacked on. Conversely, although great movies, the originals had their warts that most people are willing to overlook, because they have almost become biblical in their status within the universe and among the fans. The pressure of pleasing and appeasing the SW community as a director is a pressure I can't imagine, and I think they did a pretty decent job with it overall.
In any case, my ranking would look something like this:
1) Return of the Jedi
2) Empire Strikes Back
3) Rise of Skywalker
4) Revenge of the Sith
5) A New Hope
6) Force Awakens
7) Last Jedi
8) The Phantom Menace
9) Attack of the Clones
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It was a lot of fun and a satisfying conclusion. I can get behind the relative of Palpatine who is trained by Skywalkers bringing balance to the force. Bringing the Emperor back as the big bad was such a good idea I wonder why no one thought of it when writing 7 and 8. Also that force battle over the transport is one of my favourite moments in any Star Wars and the light sabre battles, both the teleportation one and death star one, were brilliant.
It is not perfect. There is a lot of ripping off Return of the Jedi and I had to laugh at a few moments of fan service and retconning plot from The Last Jedi. The sidelining/friendzoning of Rose was especially hilarious. I also found the story dragged a lot in the 2nd act feeling like a pointless video game fetch quest and all the Leia scenes felt a little awkward.
Finally I will add that I am really thankfully with the character development in the one with Rey, Kylo, and Finn all having an interesting arc. I'm especially happy we finally got some background on Poe other than just being the "best pilot". You know that him and Keri Russell are totally going to hook up after a few drinks at the victory after party.
Overall: 8/10.
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It was a lot of fun and a satisfying conclusion. I can get behind the relative of Palpatine who is trained by Skywalkers bringing balance to the force. Bringing the Emperor back as the big bad was such a good idea I wonder why no one thought of it when writing 7 and 8. Also that force battle over the transport is one of my favourite moments in any Star Wars and the light sabre battles, both the teleportation one and death star one, were brilliant.
It is not perfect. There is a lot of ripping off Return of the Jedi and I had to laugh at a few moments of fan service and retconning plot from The Last Jedi. The sidelining/friendzoning of Rose was especially hilarious. I also found the story dragged a lot in the 2nd act feeling like a pointless video game fetch quest and all the Leia scenes felt a little awkward.
Finally I will add that I am really thankfully with the character development in the one with Rey, Kylo, and Finn all having an interesting arc. I'm especially happy we finally got some background on Poe other than just being the "best pilot". You know that him and Keri Russell are totally going to hook up after a few drinks at the victory after party.
Overall: 8/10.
If you like Poe, which I do, he's a pretty prominent character in Star Wars Resistance. I wouldn't say Star Wars Resistance is good, but the last few episodes of Season 1 are probably worth watching.
Dowloaded it. Was Ok. Checked most of the boxes but there wasn't much excitement. Except when they made you think Rey killed Chewbacca, which was maybe a bit manipulative but I get why they did it.
I think my rankings would be something like this. Might be a bit biased towards the prequels because I was young and huge into Star Wars when they came out.
1. New Hope
2. Empire
3. Return of the Jedi
4. Phantom Menace- podracing, lightsabers. People hate it because of Jajar and the Plinkett review, but I think it's really good.
5. Attack of the Clones - so many awesome scenes, plot was a bit of mess. Starts of as a space fantasy noir and turns into Edgar Rice Burroughs.
6. Force Awakens - pretty safe, but was well done.
7. Rise of Skywalker
8. Rogue One - nice story with interesting characters.
9. Solo - fun action adventure
10. Last Jedi - didn't mind, other than the space walk and hyperspace exploit.
11. Revenge of the Sith - So bad. Nooo! And the 'high ground'. I can't think of one scene that isn't totally stupid.
After watching ROTS and 7 and 8 I wish Rian Johnson was in charge of lore and JJ was in charge of plot.
In 7 JJ hides Luke, has a 30 second nonsense flash sequence when Rey picks of the Saber, tells us nothing about Snoke, why Ren fell, or why Luke is on a Island. He does make a very entertaining movie that I quite enjoyed. But he didn’t do any heavy lifting. He just opened up a bunch of loose ends and left people in odd positions.
Then you have Rian who nails the Skywalker myth, handles Snoke perfectly, the Ren/Rey/Luke scenes are great. The development of this “Force Diad” we get in 9 is solely because of the heavy lifting. But when it came to making an entertaining movie he had the awful cold open, the casino planet, Hyperspace Chase, and Holdo Maneuver.
Then in 9 I think JJ took a dump on Sith Lore here. Under no circumstances should Palpatine be wanting to pass on his life to a Successor. It fundamentally breaks the rule of 2 Also having Palpatine not know that he could suck the life out of Rey and Kylo was a big misstep as well. If he was controlling Snoke who set up Forcetime he should know their connection.
I think they wasted a lot of 7 and 8 to tell the story they did on 9. Rey should have found out she was a Palpatine in 8 so when Palpatine is still alive it is less of a shock.
I enjoyed the whole Trillogy but neither director was good at both lore and movie making. One thing people criticizing LTJ after watching this movie is that Rey/Kylo was entirely built in TLJ. Without that core relationship well defined 9 would be terrible.
I wonder how people would have reacted if Rey found out she was a Palpatine in a dramatic “twist” at the end of a very different TLJ. I think it would have been ridiculed for being an obvious ESB ripoff.
It’s too bad neither JJ or Rian had thought any of this out.
If we knew in TLJ about Rey being a Palpatine and also knew that Luke knew (sensed it) but witheld that information from Rey, it would create a very interesting underlying thread in the storyline at Acht-To. You would feel and understand the conflict within luke about training this girl with that heritage. Even that alone could've worked for Luke being hesitant/unwilling to offer his guidance, rather than the Ren story. I mean we can watch it again with these things in mind, but damn, what could've been!.. if only the directors worked collectively together on the three movie arc.
Why didnt Obi-Wan force "heal" Qui-Gon Jinn. Explain to me how did Kylo Ren grab the necklace in that scene? What they did to the force these last 3 Disney installments is upsetting. Why did Ben Solo fade like Yoda and Obi Wan?
I guess space is no big deal ! Finn didn't need any kind of breathing apparatus! No such thing as gravity either. I nearly left the theatre when Rey "healed" Kylo Ren. Ill show myself out now. I get overly emotional with this topic!!
Why didnt Obi-Wan force "heal" Qui-Gon Jinn. Explain to me how did Kylo Ren grab the necklace in that scene? What they did to the force these last 3 Disney installments is upsetting. Why did Ben Solo fade like Yoda and Obi Wan?
I guess space is no big deal ! Finn didn't need any kind of breathing apparatus! No such thing as gravity either. I nearly left the theatre when Rey "healed" Kylo Ren. Ill show myself out now. I get overly emotional with this topic!!
If you're that focused on finding holes in logic, you can find them in every film throughout the saga. You do something new, the "detective" fans will look back through the series and ask those hypothetical questions. But the reason why is obvious, it wasn't a part of the universe yet. Abrams would have to refrain from doing anything new in order to avoid breaking the rules that were set up prior to these films. But that isn't as exciting. I don't mind him adding new possibilities. Clearly the healing doesnt come without a huge cost. And who knows, perhaps that ability had something to do with them being a force diad?!
They were battling in the atmosphere of Exogol, so if there is oxygen, why does Finn need an apparatus? If we're going to go down that path, then shouldn't every space battle in the series be completely silent? Sound cant travel in space.
We can see your stance. I think you're going a bit off the deep end here though.
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J.J. with the Rian Johnson diss. “Don’t disrespect that weapon. (Something like that) from Luke was a clear shot at how Rian Johnson’s Luke tossed the saber over his shoulder in TLJ
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I have been not very interested in Star Wars lately. I have been having a hard time getting into it all. It's taken me since April to read a Star Wars book and I was only half way through. I just had no interest in putting on a Star Wars movie.
Having seen The Rise of Skywalker today I feel rejuvenated on the franchise. I picked up my book later this afternoon (Scoundrels) and now I'm going to sit down and watch The Force Awakens... Though I may have a change of heart and watch Episode 1-9 before I head back to work in the New Year.
I'm totally going to go back to see this one. I saw The Force Awakens at least 3 times in the theatre and I saw The Last Jedi only once in the theatre. I saw Rogue One and Solo twice each.
I'm pumped about Star Wars again.
Yep. This is me. I had low expectations because TLJ. I knew J.J. would fix things but he blew past my expectation on that..
So happy.
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J.J. with the Rian Johnson diss. “Don’t disrespect that weapon. (Something like that) from Luke was a clear shot at how Rian Johnson’s Luke tossed the saber over his shoulder in TLJ
As was shafting Rose to the friendzone for newly introduced Stormtrooper girl, and limiting her screen time to just a few fleeting scenes. In fact I'm pretty sure Dom Monaghan got more time on screen - who purportedly landed his shoehorned role by winning a sports bet with JJ.
They should've had Rey torpedo one of the lactating aliens from Luke's x-wing on the way out too.
As was shafting Rose to the friendzone for newly introduced Stormtrooper girl, and limiting her screen time to just a few fleeting scenes. In fact I'm pretty sure Dom Monaghan got more time on screen - who purportedly landed his shoehorned role by winning a sports bet with JJ.
They should've had Rey torpedo one of the lactating aliens from Luke's x-wing on the way out too.
But I kid, lactating alien lives matter.
Why did he shaft Rose? I kind of liked that relationship.
Saw it last night and didn't like it. I preferred it a little bit to TLJ, which I hate, simply because of the Palpatine scenes, but as a whole the movie felt superficial and inconsequential. This whole trilogy felt like there was so much wasted time in the first two movies that this movie was forced to do a ton of stuff in too little time.
I hope they can do something better when they don't have to tie their next work back to the original trilogies.
I really wonder what JJ's plan for movie #2 would have been. My guess:
-The main story line would have been the conflict between Snoke and Ray, and eventually Kylo Ren. After Snoke is killed, it's revealed that another force was really behind Snoke, huge hints at Palpatine with him possibly making an appearance. Snoke is used as a test by Palpatine for Kylo Ren, who is meant to "strike him down".
-The Knights of Ren are actually explained. A lot of detail goes into how Kylo Ren got that name and his affiliation with the Knights.
-Ray's hero journey is a lot more complex. She suffers some kind of major defeat in movie #2 that she has to recover from. She recovers via training supplied by Luke.
-The officers in the First Order - Hux, Phasma, etc..- play a larger role. They act like a firm leadership that conflicts with Kylo and keeps him in check. The transition between the First Order and the Final Order is ultimately a lot smoother.
-The destruction of the old Rebellion forces plays a lot bigger role and is a lot more meaningful. Mothma, Akbar, Leia, and possibly Luke all go down in dramatic fashion stopping the First Order. Things look desperate.
-Poe and Finn's sense of defeat/regret is tied to the defeat of the old Rebellion heros. Their own inexperience potentially contributed to this defeat.
Overall, the fixes for this trilogy just seem so obvious, and there was so much potential there.
