Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

[Alatar]

Its also possible that with such a weight of expectation, they tried to keep everyone happy and satisfied nobody. I'm sure I'll enjoy it anyway. I'm a glass half full kinda guy.

[elengil]

Its also possible that with such a weight of expectation, they tried to keep everyone happy and satisfied nobody. I'm sure I'll enjoy it anyway. I'm a glass half full kinda guy.

I've honestly always kind of been a "what's in this glass?" kind of person...

[Túrin Turambar]

The weakest reviews of the new SW movies. I'm not much of a SW guy but it is a bit of a bummer as the new movies have largely been solid fun, and it was easy to see how there was potential to build something genuinely great. Not surprised it didn't quite work out as they didn't really seem to know where they wanted to go with all this.

I'm going on Friday, so you'll likely hear my thoughts then.

I don’t want to get too deeply into a post-mortem without, you know, seeing the film . But I think the decision to give one director complete creative control over the first film and then another complete creative control over the second is looking really odd in retrospect. It works for franchises like Marvel and James Bond where each film to some extent stands alone, but when these are meant to be a complete story they really needed to start with the end in mind.

It was always going to be a challenge to make this trilogy given it never really had a reason to exist, and the wild careening from one direction to another hasn’t helped.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if J. J. Abrams has a dartboard with Rian Johnson’s face on it in his house.

[yovargas]

Actually, Marvel did have one person - Kevin Feige - who was responsible for trying to keep all the disparate movies tied together reasonably well, even as different directors and writers came and went. He is given a whole lot of the credit for Marvel's success. For some baffling reason Disney didn't do that with Star Wars and that clearly ended up being a big mistake.

[Túrin Turambar]

Actually, Marvel did have one person - Kevin Feige - who was responsible for trying to keep all the disparate movies tied together reasonably well, even as different directors and writers came and went. He is given a whole lot of the credit for Marvel's success. For some baffling reason Disney didn't do that with Star Wars and that clearly ended up being a big mistake.

I didn't know that! It makes sense having seen some of the films, though. Clearly Marvel managed to find the right balance between keeping everyone to overall narrative arc but still giving the individual directors enough creative control for them to make each film their own.

[Frelga]

In an interview with a Marvel director (can't remember who) he said that he had a directive for where certain characters had to end up at the end of the movie no matter what else happened to them. That seems like a good balance between a creative freedom within each movie and the overall consistency of the franchise.

[Alatar]

Just out of the midnight viewing. Overall, it’s just fine. More feedback later when people have seen it.

[yovargas]

Oof. As our resident "glass half full" guy, somehow a "just fine" from you feels like the worst reaction yet.

[Alatar]

Yeah, I'm afraid so. There are some lovely moments but a lot of it feels made up on the spot, including hand wavy "the Force" stuff that never appeared in any other SW movie. The opening crawl is by far the worst Opening Crawl of any Star Wars movie. You'll understand when you see it. Ok, can't say much more without getting spoilery. Ooh. Maybe one thing. My favourite moment was just two words and you'll know them when you hear them!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Would it be good to start a spoiler thread? Or just post spoilers here behind spoiler tags? I for one don't mind reading spoilers.

Hidden text.

I'd be interested to know if Rey really is Palpatine's granddaughter, and if you found that to be as ridiculous as it sounds to me.

[yovargas]

I don't mind if spoilers are posted here.

[Alatar]

Hidden text.

I'd be interested to know if Rey really is Palpatine's granddaughter, and if you found that to be as ridiculous as it sounds to me.

Yes, and no that didn't bother me as much as other stuff. I hadn't seen an spoilers on that so it was a surprise to me.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks, Al. I'd be interested in as much of your take as you would be willing to share, particularly since I have found that our reactions to films seem to align pretty closely.

[Jude]

I don't mind spoilers as long as they're inside spoiler tags.

[Alatar]

Ok, here's a mildly spoilery review, leaving out major twists

Hidden text.

The opening crawl announces without preamble that Palpatine has returned and we see a montage of Kylo Ren searching for him and finding out that the voices in his head were never Vader, but Palpatine trying to manipulate him. Basically Palpatine is on life support in a weird Sith temple and has built a giant Armada of Star Destroyers, each with a planet Killer cannon. Yeah, basically thousands of easily transportable Death Stars.

We get to see the rebels fighting some battle thats not really clear and then then Falcon escapes being chased by some Tie Fighters. Contrary to every single Star Wars movie to date, the Tie Fighters are following Poe and Co through multiple Light jumps. This despite the fact that the falcon's jump drive needs time to spin up between light speed jumps and the fact that Tie Fighters can't do light speed. They're not jump capable. Oh, and you're not supposed to be able to track a ship through hyperspace but apparently there was something about that in the last movie that I don't remember. All of this is in the first 10 minutes and its pretty apparent that they're frantically trying to get the story back on track after Rian Johnson took it on tour in Last Jedi. Its painfully obvious that he screwed the pooch as far as JJ Abrams was concerned and he spends most of this movie retconning it.

The Leia footage worked pretty well I thought. Some had claimed that it was really obvious they were working dialogue round generic soundbites to make the plot work, but honestly, dialogue has never been a strength of the SW movies and I don't think anyone would have thought anything of it if they hadn't known Carrie was gone. In fact Leia had a couple of really nice moments and got a fitting end.

Probably the biggest issue was just too many characters. Rose was practically unused. Poe and Finn were interchangeable. Chewie has a bit to do and gave me one of my few emotional moments. There was another but I consider it too big a spoiler. Lando was fine but unneccesary except as a way to hand the torch on to the younger generation, which was kinda too little too late. Hux has a stupid reversal that makes no sense and it goes nowhere.

I did think that Rey and Kylo Ren were handled really well. Some lovely callbacks to the first movie that felt like full circle. Both Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver give great performances.

But back to the Palpatine thing. Honestly one of the lines was something like "I know I said your parents were nobodies. I didn't lie. But they chose to be nobodies so they could hide you". Its not just retconning, its asking the impossible of the audience's willing suspension of disbelief. We remember what you said. It wasn't a fake out. He told her "they sold her, but that is was to protect her". Sorry, not buying it. Rian fucked you over and you're trying to pretend he didn't. Simple as. I actually hope there's a JJ Abram's directors cut of Last Jedi someday to fix this howler of a mess.

The visuals are amazing, but it really lacked heart for me. Its just an unfortunate glimpse into what might have been, if Rian Johnson hadn't directed Last Jedi. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Last Jedi, but its not part of the story Abrams was trying to tell and it broke both movies in the end.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks, Al! I wonder why Abrams didn't just do the full trilogy. That never made sense to me.

Hidden text.

I did think that Rey and Kylo Ren were handled really well. Some lovely callbacks to the first movie that felt like full circle. Both Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver give great performances.

By 'first movie' do you mean "Force Awakens" or "Star Wars" itself (sorry, I refuse to call it "A New Hope")?

[Alatar]

Hidden text.

By 'first movie' do you mean "Force Awakens" or "Star Wars" itself (sorry, I refuse to call it "A New Hope")?

Hidden text.

Force Awakens although there's also a couple of callbacks to Star Wars and Empire that I'll leave as surprises

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Frelga]

I tried to watch Solo just to be a completist.

I didn't ask for much. Just an entertaining movie with cool visuals and action sequences. Did I get it? No.

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[Túrin Turambar]

Solo was the first Star Wars film I started watching and didn't bother to finish. I loved the world-building, particularly giving the impression of life for everyday citizens of the Empire, but didn't find myself engaged enough with either the story or characters to continue.