Movies Star Wars - The Thread

[Eigengrau]

Saw the film a few hours ago.

Not really going to spoil anything, besides I don't think I have much to add at this stage, but I'll put it in spoiler brackets just in case:

Spoiler

It's pretty much what I had anticipated/said a few posts above, but honestly, the fan-service + horrible, cringy, forced, on-the-nose retconning was laughably bad all the way through.

In many, many instances where they're referring to something that happened/was said in "The Last Jedi", the way the dialogue comes across is the equivalent of:

"LOL nevermind that"
"Lol yeah that was stupid, the guy who wrote the script was stupid"
"Yeah that was stupid right?!"
"BRUH forget that ever happened!"

So in regards to those headlines saying that they're shitting hard on Rian Johnson, I can totally see where they're coming from.

I mean it's true that things were beyond fucked after The last Jedi, there was no way in hell they could ever deliver a salvageable final film in the trilogy, when barely anything ever happened to begin with across the 3 films.

But retconning a ton of stuff and not even trying to hide it, and then doing nothing else but throwing cheap fan-service and nostalgia...

I mean the film is pretty much a reel, like they looked at all the previous star wars films, asked "what are the most iconic moments?", and then said "let's find a way to put them all in the film!"

Once again, they're pandering to the audience. They're trying to save face, try to make it as crowd-pleasing as possible.

But worried about telling a good story? Fuck no, and even if they were, it's far beyond too late at this stage.

They made their own bed (and repetitively shat on it) from the moment they decided to make this trilogy as they went along, no story arc outlined for either the plot or the characters, no vision, handing each film to a different director and letting them do whatever they wanted.

And it sucks, because the actors in the film are all (mostly) talented, and there was tons of missed potential.

This feels like 2 films crammed into one, but you know what the worst part is?

EVEN IF the 2nd film had expanded on things that would still lead to the plot arc in "The Rise of Skywalker", even if they hadn't made it as "rushed", it would still be bad because the story that they came up with is just downright stupid, ridiculous, and predictable.

It literally feels like they sat around a table and said:

"Okay, how do we make this last film as basic, easy to understand, and crowd-pleasing as possible?"

Feels like something they just wanted to be over with.

And then, there were several scenes where they're trying to make you feel a certain way, when you ALREADY KNOW how that situation is going to be resolved in just a few moments.

It's absolutely ridiculous in many instances.

There's no sense of any real danger.

I mean come on, it's the last film, what were people expecting? That the bad guys would win?

Of course not, but when not even the journey itself has any originality to it it's just...

I don't know, as I said, it's pure entertainment, I sat easily through this, but it's ridiculous and downright sad what they did, not just with this film, but with the trilogy as a whole

 

[Jammin]

I'm going to go tonight. Feel like I want to get this done quick. So I can rip it off like a bandaid.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 21, 2019, Original Post Date: Dec 20, 2019 ---

Ok, I want to do something different so I want to talk about my positive impressions of the movie. No spoilers but I'll put it in tags just in case.

Spoiler: Positives

Positive #1
Adam Driver is great in this movie. He's given some stuff to do and he crushes it.

Positive #2
The second act is actually pretty good.

Positive #3
There are some characters here I could actually like and care about if they had more time.

Positive #4
I think if you just don't think about anything. This movie could be good. Like a Transformers movie. So for like a kid, I think this movie would be better.

Now I'm not going to get too deep into negatives but there is one thing I just have to mention.

Spoiler

The third act is basically awful.

EDIT: But to clarity it's not the Last Jedi kind of awful where your left thinking "What have you done. You idiot."

More like in an "Oh, I see what your doing. It's stupid but I appreciate that your heart's in the right place. None of this shit makes ANY sense at all but, if it did, I would probably like it." way

 

[kkck]

I'm going to go tonight. Feel like I want to get this done quick. So I can rip it off like a bandaid.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 21, 2019, Original Post Date: Dec 20, 2019 ---

Ok, I want to do something different so I want to talk about my positive impressions of the movie. No spoilers but I'll put it in tags just in case.

Spoiler: Positives

Positive #1
Adam Driver is great in this movie. He's given some stuff to do and he crushes it.

Positive #2
The second act is actually pretty good.

Positive #3
There are some characters here I could actually like about if they had more time.

Positive #4
I think if you just don't think about anything. This movie could be good. Like a Transformers movie. So for like a kid, I think this movie would be better.

Now I'm not going to get too deep into negatives but there is one thing I just have to mention.

Spoiler

The third act is basically awful.

EDIT: But to clarity it's not the Last Jedi kind of awful where your left thinking "What have you done. You idiot."

More like in an "Oh, I see what your doing. It's stupid but I appreciate that your heart's in the right place. None of this shit makes ANY sense at all but, if it did, I would probably like it." way

How is the positive 4.... a positive? Isn't that the problem with TLJ? When I walked out of the movie I had a relatively good impression of it overall (except for luke's character arc), its when I saw it again and got to think about what was happening without so much of the wow factor that I started loathing it...

 

[Jammin]

How is the positive 4.... a positive? Isn't that the problem with TLJ? When I walked out of the movie I had a relatively good impression of it overall (except for luke's character arc), its when I saw it again and got to think about what was happening without so much of the wow factor that I started loathing it...

What I mean is there were kids in the theater i was in having a great time and I could see why.

The Last Jedi wasn't simple or satisfying on even a shallow level. It was actively avoiding being those things. People enjoyed it on first viewing because it was different. Only later realizing what it wasn't. The Rise of Skywalker would be able to accomplish those things at the very least, I think.

Like if you don't care about things making sense and you don't know anything about Star Wars lore, or care. If you just want to see space magic and an epic battle of good vs evil and aren't prone to think to hard. This movie can provide that. This is a movie actually trying to meet those expectations. It just can't do it in a way that makes sense when you think about things.

Spoiler

The first act is basically the second movie as Abrams would have done it. Just compressed into like an hour. It's not good but it's so fast it doesn't leave the audience a long time to dwell on the bad. Just like Transformers movies do.

The second act is like where the story in this movie actually starts. And that part is actually, I thought, reasonably good. You get better character work in that part that anything TLJ had and some nice pretty set pieces to look at.

The third act is the big dumb part. And it's very dumb. But it's also very big. If somebody just cares about the big and doesn't care about the dumb I think the resolution is perfectly enjoyable.

The Last Jedi all hinged on not doing what people expect in a Star Wars movie. This movie does that. Does it do it well? Haha... no. But it does do it. And if anything it goes too big and goes too far. And that's where it falls apart. Especially in the very real struggle it has with just how much of an albatross the Last Jedi turned out to be. Which is quite evident in the character arcs in this movie. You can really see how hard they were trying to find some way to piece it all back together.

With Kylo and Rey and I think they actually manage to do it. With Kylo I'd give their effort a 10 out of 10. With Rey more like 7 out of 10. Finn and Poe they just couldn't put back together and at a certain point it feels like the writers knew it. It honestly feels like they are in this movie only because they have to be.

 

[kkck]

Ok, saw the movie last night.

Spoiler: spoilers

Overall... I liked the movie. I had fun watching it and unlike TLJ there aren't any bits in there which outright piss me off. Which normally is something weird to say when talking about a movie but I feel the need to point it out after what TLJ did. To be fair, this movie does lacks the wow factor TLJ had.

I can see why this movie is basically an apology, to the fans, of what went on in TLJ. I almost enjoyed how obviously spiteful the movie is about it. Apology accepted I suppose but unfortunately an apology doesn't change cannon.

On the sidious thing.... I am not entirely clear on why is he is alive. Was the sidious at the death star a clone? Or did he transfer his spirit to a clone? They are clearly burrowing from legends for the movie but I feel the movie doesn't adequately explain how this was done. Disney has been clearly working its way towards a sidious reveal through the movies, since after removing legends from cannon the new EU stuff was oddly focused on sidious, but to me what makes this not work is the lack of luke. In the original legends stuff sidious revived through clones but you still had luke to face him. If you bring back sidious without luke... then it just looks like luke failed. More. I can see how JJ was cornered here, all courtesy of TLJ, but unfortunately this doesn't change this plays out weirdly.

A bit which made me laugh a bit, but also annoyed me, was sidious having a snoke jar on the sith world. At least there was an explanation for snoke. It was the film representation of ripping out a bandaid. Get over it quickly and not think about it later. Gotta appreciate the awkward attempt at closure for this at least.

When seeing the wayfinder stuff... At first I was annoyed at it. But then I sort of warmed up to that. The sith having their own personal hidden planet is a cool development IMO. A place where they could retreat when things got dire and do shenanigans hidden away from the galaxy... For a moment I was annoyed that there were two wayfinders but then I recalled "Always two there are.... a master and an apprentice". So.... it makes a ton of sense that there are exactly 2. I kinda wanted these two to be holocrons....

I liked the scene with rey and kylo having a force levitation contest. And I didn't see the force lightning thing coming at all.... To an extent it didn't feel like rey had earned that though. Force lightning is a fairly advanced dark side power which IIRC requires you to pretty much boil with hatred... So however cool the scene was it feels slightly unearned if you consider the lore.

The death star scenes were ok. It does take a fair bit of suspension of disbelief to believe so much of it was left though. Or that any life remained in endor after such a massive thing fell on it. Rey confronting her dark side vision was a cool moment though. Sith rey is almost a better rey than the actual rey. Imagine a star wars movie with a sith empress like that.... The only flaw this scene had was the amount of cuts in it. It's 2019... A blockbuster movie with millions of dollars worth of budget can't have fights with that many cuts.

The battle between rey and kylo... Was ok. I liked how rey "killed" kylo though.

I liked the ach too scenes with luke. Luke being actually useful, even if from beyond death, was something the franchise desperately needed. The reveal that leia was actually a fully trained jedi happened two movies too late but I still loved it.


The scenes between palpatine and rey..... honestly, they didn't do much for me. I get what the movie was going for but I feel it comes just short. The idea of every sith being within sidious also needs more context IMO. Because I honestly don't know what he means. Sith don't really enjoy an afterlife like some jedi do and their unifying principle is that the apprentice and master are constantly at odds with one another. When seeing the movie I was also not quite clear on whether sidious actually intended to pass on his empire to rey OR the whole thing was just a plan to suck the force out of rey and ben. It makes more sense that sidious planned the whole thing of course. I would also like it if sidious had planned on passing on his empire but went full "FUCK IT THIS WORKS TOO" when he realized he could suck the force out of rey and kylo. I kinda wish sidious would have picked a lightsaber and schooled rey on its use.

I also liked sidious targeting the entire fleet with lightning. In the lore you have force users with what looks like planetary levels of force powers and IIRC there is even mention of siths drawing on the force from the entire galaxy... So seeing it in a movie is great.

One thing which did annoy me.... the kiss scene. The movie did not earn that. In the force awakens kylo and rey spent pretty much the entire time trying to kill each other. In TLJ suddenly they were suddenly on speaking terms and rey wanted to redeem kylo in spite of them not really knowing each other. Of course, rey's relationship in regards to the skywalker family is grossly mismanaged across the entire trilogy. Like in TFA when rey hugs leia in spite of them not having met each other.

And now.... the trilogy is done for. Overall, the trilogy was lackluster. Though to be fair I have kinda resented the trilogy a bit since TFA when it turned out luke hadn't succeeded in creating a new jedi order. I can buy luke not being the central character in a new trilogy, if anything he should be too powerful to be there most of the time, but how disney actually handled this made luke into a loser who failed his mission.

 

[Jammin]

The more time I have to think about The Rise of Skywalker. The more I think I like it. I'll never love it. I'll probably never think it's a good movie. And I'll definitely never want to watch it again. But the overall feeling it left with me was mostly positive.

There are only really 4 things in the movie that I really don't like.

Spoiler: Negatives

#1 The Dagger
That thing is terrible. An ancient dagger type thing pointing toward something that crashed only like 40 years ago. It's just a really bad mcguffin. There were other ways to do this. It didn't need to be this stupid.

#2 The "You are all the Sith" VS "I am all the Jedi" thing
That's some bullshit. It just pushed things too far. I couldn't get on board with it.

#3 The Sith Planet Destroying Fleet.
It's just too much. Builiding this whole fleet in a place they can't get out of without some special tower. There is just so much there which doesn't really work. And then the actual scenes with the navigation dishes don't make a lot of sense either.

#4 Space force lightning
No. Just no.

But there are things I genuinely like too.

Spoiler

#1 Kylo's whole character arc.
I know people have said it's just Vader's but I disagree. The way this whole movie portrayed him as a much calmer almost jedi-like Sith really worked for me. Like what he had done to his father had been eating at him and this movie showed that coming to a head.

#2 Rey's character arc (kinda)
What I mean here is that I liked how imperfect Rey was. Her almost sith like rage. Her impulsiveness. Having her almost kill Chewbacca. Having her almost kill Kylo as the aggressor. All of that I loved. Her being a Palpatine. I enjoyed that. With more time I think she could have become someone like Luke where her facing the big bad feels earned. As it was I think she almost got there, but not quite. That last scene with her beating the Emperor felt... odd. But she got closer than I expected. The adoption of the Skywalker name at the end... that I hated.

#3 The death star showdown.
This showdown between Rey and Kylo I thought was the best part of the movie. Visually. The emotional climax of it. It really worked for me.

 

[kkck]

The more time I have to think about The Rise of Skywalker. The more I think I like it. I'll never love it. I'll probably never think it's a good movie. And I'll definitely never want to watch it again. But the overall feeling it left with me was mostly positive.

There are only really 4 things in the movie that I really don't like.

Spoiler: Negatives

#1 The Dagger
That thing is terrible. An ancient dagger type thing pointing toward something that crashed only like 40 years ago. It's just a really bad mcguffin. There were other ways to do this. It didn't need to be this stupid.

#2 The "You are all the Sith" VS "I am all the Jedi" thing
That's some bullshit. It just pushed things too far. I couldn't get on board with it.

#3 The Sith Planet Destroying Fleet.
It's just too much. Builiding this whole fleet in a place they can't get out of without some special tower. There is just so much there which doesn't really work. And then the actual scenes with the navigation dishes don't make a lot of sense either.

#4 Space force lightning
No. Just no.

But there are things I genuinely like too.

Spoiler

#1 Kylo's whole character arc.
I know people have said it's just Vader's but I disagree. The way this whole movie portrayed him as a much calmer almost jedi-like Sith really worked for me. Like what he had done to his father had been eating at him and this movie showed that coming to a head.

#2 Rey's character arc (kinda)
What I mean here is that I liked how imperfect Rey was. Her almost sith like rage. Her impulsiveness. Having her almost kill Chewbacca. Having her almost kill Kylo as the aggressor. All of that I loved. Her being a Palpatine. I enjoyed that. With more time I think she could have become someone like Luke where her facing the big bad feels earned. As it was I think she almost got there, but not quite. That last scene with her beating the Emperor felt... odd. But she got closer than I expected. The adoption of the Skywalker name at the end... that I hated.

#3 The death star showdown.
This showdown between Rey and Kylo I thought was the best part of the movie. Visually. The emotional climax of it. It really worked for me.

Spoiler

Agreed, the whole dagger thing is just silly. I even forgot to comment on that when writing my post.... The sith writing plot point also feels kinda forced and unnecessary in general. And in hindsight it is also kinda silly that no one checked the emperor's room at the death star. Considering TJR I am not sure of why it'd even be there. I suppose it could have been vader's wayfinder? And sidious left his own elsewhere for kylo to find in order to advance the plot at his convenience due to foresight? It kinda looks like anyone but the sith needed a wayfinder to get to that planet.

Yeah.... what would have made more sense is something like "I am One Sith vs I am all jedi". It would also have played out nicely how the rule of two was replaced by the rule of one in legends.

I don't really mind the fleet itself. As in, within star wars I could buy a pocket sized planet killer being a thing (not literal pocket sized though, just in the context of a star destroyer vs a death star). Having every ship in the fleet being like that is definitely too much though. And the plan beyond that point is just silly as well as it involves the arbitrary destruction of the planets that are supposed to be part of the empire. Granted that the galaxy probably has hundreds of thousands of inhabited worlds but given the context of the movie it sounds like destroying the hundreds of thousand of worlds is a possibility.

Agreed, both of them were finally given decent character arcs that didn't involve shitting on past star wars. I even laughed when kylo had his helmet fixed. I feel the bit would have made more sense if kylo went further when having his helmet rebuilt though. When it comes to vader's armor..... It wasn't just to keep him alive. It was designed to cause him physical pain which in turn intensified his hatred and made him stronger in the dark side. If they were remaking the helmet then kylo should have incorporated some aspect of that into it, so that it's usage wasn't just so merely aesthetic. Imagine if the movie made the point that kylo had redesign the helmet to constantly burn him....

One part that should have been better regarding ben though is his fight against the knights of ren. It feels like JJ really struggled with giving them something to do here. And having them fight. The fight between kylo and the knights should have played out more like the fight in TLJ against snoke's personal guard. Except with kylo soloing everyone (pun not intended).

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 23, 2019, Original Post Date: Dec 23, 2019 ---

So.... that looks obscenely dangerous AND fun.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 26, 2019 ---

Spoiler

You know what would have been really cool in this movie? Sidious giving rey and kylo proper sith names. Specially for kylo... He offered them both his empire and throne, in essence making them dark lords of the sith.

 

[Eigengrau]

Was the sidious at the death star a clone? Or did he transfer his spirit to a clone?

The Palpatine we see in this film is the one and only one that there ever was.
If he was a clone, or if he had transfered his spirit, there would be no reason for his body to be all mangled, ravaged, and on "life support"... I think all of those details pretty much let the viewer know that this is the exact same character that Vader "killed".

Disney has been clearly working its way towards a sidious reveal through the movies

Not sure if I understood you correctly or not, but it is abundantly cleary that they pulled Palpatine out of their asses.
I'm 100% positive that there was never any plan to bring Palpatine back during Force Awakens/Last Jedi.
But because Rian Johnson went ahead and killed Snoke (oopsie), everyone shat their pants not knowing what to do next, so of course they had to bring back the one big baddie.

They knew so damn well that everything was fubar, that they even revealed/confirmed that Palpatine would be in the film way ahead of time, even in the trailers.

Why not leave it as a "surprise"/twist? Why immediately spoil it right away...? Simple, because at this stage they're just trying to get people to go and see the film with whatever means necessary.

"Hey you guys that liked the earlier films but not Last Jedi, Palpatine is back! Zomg, right?!"

Again, pretty sure there was never, ever any plan to actually have Palpatine come back in this trilogy.

If there was, then the proper way to go about it would've been to "reveal" it at the end of Jedi, or maybe even drop hard hints at the end of Force Awakens. Now that would've been a twist that would get people talking for 2 straight years until the next film.

But nope, instead we got

"Hey look who's back in the final film of the trilogy where the good guys are sure to win aaaaaand he's dead again..."

I mean it's so ridiculous and cringy how obvious it is, or seems, to me at least, that they had absolutely no idea what they were doing.

And the sad part is, even if, let's assume, that they had given the entire trilogy to JJ, and he still would've told the exact same story, with Palpatine coming back in the exact same fashion, it would still be a shit (not to mention re-hashed) plot for this trilogy.

Like really, what was going to happen? Palpatine winning?

<_<

 

[kkck]

The Palpatine we see in this film is the one and only one that there ever was.
If he was a clone, or if he had transfered his spirit, there would be no reason for his body to be all mangled, ravaged, and on "life support"... I think all of those details pretty much let the viewer know that this is the exact same character that Vader "killed".

Not sure if I understood you correctly or not, but it is abundantly cleary that they pulled Palpatine out of their asses.
I'm 100% positive that there was never any plan to bring Palpatine back during Force Awakens/Last Jedi.
But because Rian Johnson went ahead and killed Snoke (oopsie), everyone shat their pants not knowing what to do next, so of course they had to bring back the one big baddie.

They knew so damn well that everything was fubar, that they even revealed/confirmed that Palpatine would be in the film way ahead of time, even in the trailers.

Why not leave it as a "surprise"/twist? Why immediately spoil it right away...? Simple, because at this stage they're just trying to get people to go and see the film with whatever means necessary.

"Hey you guys that liked the earlier films but not Last Jedi, Palpatine is back! Zomg, right?!"

Again, pretty sure there was never, ever any plan to actually have Palpatine come back in this trilogy.

If there was, then the proper way to go about it would've been to "reveal" it at the end of Jedi, or maybe even drop hard hints at the end of Force Awakens. Now that would've been a twist that would get people talking for 2 straight years until the next film.

But nope, instead we got

"Hey look who's back in the final film of the trilogy where the good guys are sure to win aaaaaand he's dead again..."

I mean it's so ridiculous and cringy how obvious it is, or seems, to me at least, that they had absolutely no idea what they were doing.

And the sad part is, even if, let's assume, that they had given the entire trilogy to JJ, and he still would've told the exact same story, with Palpatine coming back in the exact same fashion, it would still be a shit (not to mention re-hashed) plot for this trilogy.

Like really, what was going to happen? Palpatine winning?

<_<

Dunno, that bit doesn't make sense to me. Because the implication would be that palpi survived:

1.- The fall
2.- Exploding
3.- The death star explosion
4.- The fall to the forest moon.

I suppose he wouldn't have had to go throw all of those if he escaped somehow but one way or the other he went through at least the first 2. Add to that his comment about unnatural powers. my general assumption remains clones and spirit transfers tbh.

My point there was.... IIRC in new expanded universe stuff there is a lot of focus on sidious. But in a different way than in the original EU stuff. As in, you have for example sidious setting up his empire to explode after or if he is gone... As if, no one was really meant to inherit it. So you have so much of the new cannon pretty much orbiting palpatine in some form of another in spite of him by any logic being super dead. Now, I don't think they had figured out years ago how they were bringing him back. The current trilogy wasn't planed properly and they didn't exactly try to write a single cohesive story. But if you consider how the non movie stuff was being developed its not a stretch that they were planning to bring back palps without knowing how to actually do it.

 

[xi0]

Yeah, to be honest I didn't get the impression that Palpatine coming back was something they did out of desperation. It was likely the plan when JJ was helping to develop the new trilogy. I just think Rian Johnson had no interest in the plot leading in that direction and Kennedy or whoever just let him do whatever the fuck he wanted despite whatever "plans" they might have had already. It was clear it was important who Rey's parents were, and TLJ was determined to kill that or misdirect it.

The fatal flaw here for me is not picking one director and one voice to go with all 3 movies. After The Force Awakens, JJ could have just stayed on and made the next two movies. Why would Disney not want him there after how successful the movie was? It leads me to believe that it was his choice and he didn't want to commit to doing it. It reeks of classic JJ Abrams to create something and to move on to something else.

 

[Eigengrau]

Dunno, that bit doesn't make sense to me. Because the implication would be that palpi survived:

1.- The fall
2.- Exploding
3.- The death star explosion
4.- The fall to the forest moon.

I suppose he wouldn't have had to go throw all of those if he escaped somehow but one way or the other he went through at least the first 2. Add to that his comment about unnatural powers. my general assumption remains clones and spirit transfers tbh.

But why would a clone be all fucked up still? Wouldn't a clone be in proper condition since its body was never the one that was harmed?

Either way, the thing is that Palpatine truly died, as he was intended to die.
He was never supposed to be brought back in any way shape or form (although I believe there's stuff in other media that detail similar "returns", but never in the actual flesh), so whatever reasoning you come up with to say that it doesn't make sense, that's the guys going "lol screw you, damn right it doesn't make sense and we don't give a fuck, sorry "

I mean, if anything you could argue that he survived by using the force to create a force-like shield to protect himself, as he fell along with some of the debris into Endor, but even that is a stretch.

There's no reasoning to how he survived, because he wasn't supposed to b alive. The guys who wrote the film just don't care, I fear it's that simple, unfortunately. They needed him to be alive whether it makes sense or not.

And that "sentence" you mentioned, about it being unnatural, is the exact same quote he said in the prequels to Anakin.

Once again, cringe and disgusting how they re-use that not only as a cheap, throw-away excuse, but also as "nostalgia" bit by having him repeat the exact same thing so people can go "lol look he said the thing from before!"

 

[kkck]

But why would a clone be all fucked up still? Wouldn't a clone be in proper condition since its body was never the one that was harmed?

Either way, the thing is that Palpatine truly died, as he was intended to die.
He was never supposed to be brought back in any way shape or form (although I believe there's stuff in other media that detail similar "returns", but never in the actual flesh), so whatever reasoning you come up with to say that it doesn't make sense, that's the guys going "lol screw you, damn right it doesn't make sense and we don't give a fuck, sorry "

I mean, if anything you could argue that he survived by using the force to create a force-like shield to protect himself, as he fell along with some of the debris into Endor, but even that is a stretch.

There's no reasoning to how he survived, because he wasn't supposed to b alive. The guys who wrote the film just don't care, I fear it's that simple, unfortunately. They needed him to be alive whether it makes sense or not.

And that "sentence" you mentioned, about it being unnatural, is the exact same quote he said in the prequels to Anakin.

Once again, cringe and disgusting how they re-use that not only as a cheap, throw-away excuse, but also as "nostalgia" bit by having him repeat the exact same thing so people can go "lol look he said the thing from before!"

Wait, there are two things here. Lucas didn't intend to ever bring back palpatine. He has said so a number of times over the years and whatnot. Now, when it comes to the new disney trilogy that's a different thing. Given how some things played out on different stuff they came up with (as I mentioned, the emperor's plan to have the empire self destruct or the bit with sidious possibly having been responsible for influencing the midiclorians in anakin's mom to create anakin) outside of the movies it seems like disney intended on bringing him back from a very early stage. And that without any regard as to how it would be done or regard to stuff already established in cannon. In that sense, I don't think JJ threw palpatine there out of desperation, that was the endgame from the beginning The desperation probably kicked in post TLJ once everything, including the past and the plot, was dead and JJ was left with very little to work with. Even considering there never was a plan in regards as to how to bring palps back.

As for why the clone wouldn't just be fine.... In the original legends stuff palp's clones weren't fine. They had a limited lifespan which only got shorter with each new body. So if you draw inspiration from that it makes sense that even palps after resurrecting in a clone would be left a decrepit dying old man until the *sight* dyad thing was thrown in.

Odds are they will "reveal" how palps survived in the movie's illustrated guide or other such material. But it will be some sort of ridiculous explanation which doesn't fit even within the substantial suspension of disbelief the series already enjoys.

 

[Jammin]

I'm on Eigengrau's side on this one. To be honest, I'm not sure there was ever a plan beyond the first movie. But to me it seemed pretty clear that Palpatine didn't belong. So I 100% read that as a desperation ploy. And to be fair I think it was a relatively successful one. It could have been much worse.

There was another thing I think was pretty clearly not the plan early on.

Spoiler

And that's Leia being a Jedi. I think it's pretty noticeable that they did that in order to work around what Rian Johnson did with killing Luke and Leia's flying space nun act. That's clearly a role that would have suited Luke much more. Only they didn't have Luke because some idiot thought it would be a good idea to kill the mentor and pivot point of the whole franchise in the stupidest way possible.

But they were written into a corner, so that's what they did.

It's like I, and many others, have said. The first hour of this movie was basically JJ making the second part over again at hyper speed. Which he had to do because the second Rian Johnson made such a mess. Which he was only able to do because I don't think there was ever a plan. Which is one of the reasons I'm increasingly sympathetic to this movie and those who made it. Rian Johnson basically pissed away all the things they needed for an effective finale. And as an extra little F you dropped the ball on everything the first movie did on a character front.

I think they pulled Palpatine out their ass. I think they pulled Lando out of their ass. You can tell the Leia's whole role was written around what usable cut footage they had from the previous two movies which they could write around.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 27, 2019, Original Post Date: Dec 27, 2019 ---

I honestly think this whole movie was written not with the premise "What would be good?" but rather "What the hell do we even do?".

And while I didn't really like the movie if I'm being honest. I think they did better than I thought they would. Which counts for something with me.

 

[xi0]

I mean, if anything you could argue that he survived by using the force to create a force-like shield to protect himself, as he fell along with some of the debris into Endor, but even that is a stretch.

Or you could say what they did with Leia surviving the vacuum of space in TLJ set the groundwork for something like that being possible.

As far as how they developed the movies - I'm not a fan of Disney, but I refuse to believe that they went into making these films with no plan at all. This isn't some intricately woven web that needs tender love and care to really work, it's fucking Star Wars. So to say they were flying by the seat of their pants sounds ludicrous to me. BUT, because JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan were only involved in making the first movie, they went with whatever Rian Johnson wanted and then they were sort of screwed from that point. That's most likely why Abrams felt like he needed to return in the first place. If TLJ was well-received like TFA, there's very little chance JJ would have returned IMO.

The films were nostalgia porn from the beginning, Vader obviously was never going to come back as he redeemed himself at the very end. So I really don't see them coming up with Palpatine as a last-ditch effort. Of course, the entire premise they ended up going with might be completely ludicrous, but his inclusion was probably decided on beforehand IMO.

I think the best argument against what I'm saying might be what they did with Snoke in TLJ, but we can't really know the behind the scenes decision-making there.

Spoiler

But again, it seems to be that Snoke's design was intentional. Him being a failed clone probably makes more sense than whatever other reason could be given for his looks. Unless of course they were going to pull a Yoda and never bother expanding on his origins at all. Who knows.

 

[Jammin]

Or you could say what they did with Leia surviving the vacuum of space in TLJ set the groundwork for something like that being possible.

As far as how they developed the movies - I'm not a fan of Disney, but I refuse to believe that they went into making these films with no plan at all. This isn't some intricately woven web that needs tender love and care to really work, it's fucking Star Wars. So to say they were flying by the seat of their pants sounds ludicrous to me. BUT, because JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan were only involved in making the first movie, they went with whatever Rian Johnson wanted and then they were sort of screwed from that point. That's most likely why Abrams felt like he needed to return in the first place. If TLJ was well-received like TFA, there's very little chance JJ would have returned IMO.

The films were nostalgia porn from the beginning, Vader obviously was never going to come back as he redeemed himself at the very end. So I really don't see them coming up with Palpatine as a last-ditch effort. Of course, the entire premise they ended up going with might be completely ludicrous, but his inclusion was probably decided on beforehand IMO.

I think the best argument against what I'm saying might be what they did with Snoke in TLJ, but we can't really know the behind the scenes decision-making there.

Spoiler

But again, it seems to be that Snoke's design was intentional. Him being a failed clone probably makes more sense than whatever other reason could be given for his looks. Unless of course they were going to pull a Yoda and never bother expanding on his origins at all. Who knows.

If you refuse to believe that then believe what you want, I suppose. That said, I think that is one thousand percent what they did.

Like whose plan do you even think it was? The first movie was Lawrence Kasdan and JJ Abrams doing a new hope again. Then people were like "this it the new hope again we'd like to see something different. So along comes The Last Jedi written and directed by Rian Johnson which strives to do everything different. Then people were like "This sucks. It isn't real star wars." So along comes Chris Terrio and JJ Abrams with this movie that tries desperately to be star wars-y again.

You really think that shit was planned?

There are specific things that also give away that there was no plan. Rian Johnson writing and directing on his own in the middle of a trilogy for one. Then there are the character arcs. In the first movie there are the start of character arcs. Like Finn has the same arc in both Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. There is only one way that happens.

Spoiler

Then with Snoke in the Force Awakens he's presenting as ominous. Your big bad. In the Last Jedi he's basically a joke.

And with Palpatine it they're explanation doesn't make any sense because his face looks like it does because Mace Windu redirected his force lighting back at him. Why would clones of him look like that? They wouldn't but they can't explain away him blowing up on the death star so this is what we get.

Then we've got the fleet of death star beam equipped capitol ships. 10,000 of them built underground by space magic. With a force 1000x bigger than the first order. Just sitting there doing nothing this whole time because...they are retconned in obviously.

The whole movie is a "Yes and..." improv game.

 

[kkck]

I never really understood why the leia scene in TLJ to be all that controversial. Why is that so outside the realm of possibilities for a force user? The more unbelievable part of it is her surviving the explosion but the power itself does not seem improbable or even new.

I also don't think the sith fleet in RoS was planned. though I suppose the mini death star beam in TLJ serves as a setup for it.

Regarding palp's or snoke's scars.... The series never makes it clear on whether sidious always looked like that and he hid it via force shenanigans or it was the result of taking his own lightning. At least to me it wouldn't be weird if merely using the dark side would cause deformation in the long run.

To me its fairly clear the trilogy as a whole was never planned as a single story. Though I don't think that in itself is the issue considering lucas' original trilogy was not planned either. The problem is having JJ doing one movie with a specific vision, then johnson doing the next one and basically spitting in JJ's vision and then JJ's revenge which, justifiably, crapped on johnson's vision.

I would still maintain that sidious was always meant to return, at least in JJ's view and perhaps in the view of disney executives that want to cash in on merchandise. The movies do not evidence that of course but the new expanded universe definitely gave sidious a ton of otherwise unjustified relevance. But as I said, there never was a plan or a fuck given about how this would be achieved.

 

[Jammin]

Because it was never built up.

You can do something like the Leia stuff if you do groundwork for it. You can't just do it out of nowhere. Because it interferes with Kylo's backstory. Where now it seems like Leia pawned her kid off on Luke, where she could have and should have been a part of that training. That's the problem with the whole "Suprise!" writing mentality. In order for it to work there needs to be a foundation that fits what your building onto it. A good writer tweaks the foundation first so it will fit when they do it. Rian Johnson build a crooked foundation and put and even more crooked building on it. And this movie just built on top of that.

One of the big problems with retconning is the unintended consequences. The questions and plot holes that are created.

That's a big problem with Palpatine. Him coming back invalidates Vader's redemptive sacrifice in Empire Strikes back. Which kind of invalidates the original and prequel trilogies in a way.

 

[kkck]

Because it was never built up.

You can do something like the Leia stuff if you do groundwork for it. You can't just do it out of nowhere. Because it interferes with Kylo's backstory. Where now it seems like Leia pawned her kid off on Luke, where she could have and should have been a part of that training. That's the problem with the whole "Suprise!" writing mentality. In order for it to work there needs to be a foundation that fits what your building on it. A good writer tweaks the foundation first so it will fit when do it. Rian Johnson build a crooked foundation and put and even more crooked building on it. And this movie just build on top of that.

One of the big problems with retconning is the unintended consequences. The questions and plot holes that are created.

That's a big problem with Palpatine. Him coming back invalidates Vader's redemptive sacrifice in Empire Strikes back. Which kind of invalidates the original and prequel trilogies in a way.

I get what you mean about leia but I don't find how this plays out to be that bad. She was trained in the force but gave it up in order to be a politician... So when she realized her kid was struggling with the dark side rather than train him herself she left it to luke who actually made a career out of it. There also has never been an scenario where kids aren't "pawned off" to be trained as jedi for that matter. Kylo was a grown ass man for some reason when his training started so he had it better than padawans from previous generations at least.

As far as the palpatine bit, I agree with how that plays out 100%. It's not a good development and worst of all, it even calls into question whether anakin was the chosen one who brought back balance to the force. Overall, its not a development that works, specially with luke's untimely death in TLJ (as I said earlier, palps being alive is a more digestible development if luke is around to duke it out with him). But that is a different thing from disney wanting to monetize their 4 billion dollar purchase of star war's most important villain and wanting to bring him back somehow, through any means, from the get go without really caring as to how they'd do it.

 

[Jammin]

I get what you mean about leia but I don't find how this plays out to be that bad. She was trained in the force but gave it up in order to be a politician... So when she realized her kid was struggling with the dark side rather than train him herself she left it to luke who actually made a career out of it. There also has never been an scenario where kids aren't "pawned off" to be trained as jedi for that matter. Kylo was a grown ass man for some reason when his training started so he had it better than padawans from previous generations at least.

Ok, do you think the scene where Luke considers killing Kylo, even for a second, makes any sense givin that Leia was also more or less a Jedi? Wouldn't reaching out to her be a much more logical thing for him to do?

I don't think it does. That scene already didn't make a lot of sense character wise. Now it makes no sense.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 27, 2019, Original Post Date: Dec 27, 2019 ---

This is what I mean when I said that the movie was "Yes and" improv.

"Yes and" Improv is when you agree with person that came before you and add information on top of that to make it as funny as possible. That's literally what I think they had to do in this movie. They took what the last movie did. Except instead of trying to be funny. They were adding information that to undo the Last Jedi. To return to being "Star Wars-y". Which is kind of impressive.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 27, 2019 ---

I honestly thought they were going to "reset the universe". I was honsestly surprised they tried to actually roll with it instead.

 

[kkck]

Ok, do you think the scene where Luke considers killing Kylo, even for a second, makes any sense givin that Leia was also more or less a Jedi? Wouldn't reaching out to her be a much more logical thing for him to do?

I don't think it does. That scene already didn't make a lot of sense character wise. Now it makes no sense.

Ah, no, the scene with luke even considering killing ben is a travesty. I loath everything TLJ did with luke's character (though hammil's performance was admirable). But that is a different thing from leia, a fully trained but non practicing jedi, having luke, a practicing jedi master, train ben not making any sense.

If I understand this correctly, leia originally asked luke to train ben because she felt the darkness in him. So.... If luke then asks leia to get involved... kylo ping pong?