Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

[Alethia]

We're all friends with Poe Dameron. He has a jacket and fly in space! We'll miss Poe. The legend is ending.
I don't even remember the name of his buddy, the one who's just running while people shoot at him. He has a girlfriend. With a name. She's nice.

This trilogy is a narrative disaster with awful place-holders characters. It's in the process of reverse enginerring his already thin mystery box promise.

But Abrams is good at bringing the concept art to life.

This is a waste of money.

Can't say I disagree, yet I'm still excited, and yes I already snagged IMAX tix. I contain multitudes.

[Drenk]

I get it. I got shivers watching the trailer. Visually, it looks way better than the MCU even if they share the same content philosophy, and that fits the trailer format although they've been doing the same one over and over again.

[jenkins]

i'm catching up with this conversation. comparing this to MCU means being familiar with MCU. comparing this to other SW trailers means being familiar with other SW trailers. i confess that that's a bit ahead of me. it's not an invalid perspective by any means, in fact it's rather advanced. but ain't nobody say that escapism is about advancement. this will be a moving movie that i'll never see

[jenkins]

the ending:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Kylo turns Jedi, dies for Rey, Rey returns to Luke's home planet, someone asks who she is, she says she's a Skywalker, ends with a sunset

[Drenk]

I'd love to watch a documentary about Disney freaking out post Episode VIII.

[Alethia]

This is now the second lowest rated (on RT) live action Star Wars film. Phantom Menace being the lowest.

[Drenk]

I've finally made this stupid video.

[Sleepless]

I'd love to watch a documentary about Disney freaking out post Episode VIII.

Paging Armando Iannucci

[Alethia]

This sucked.
They should have just called it Fuck You Rian Johnson.

It just pummels you with course-corrective plot, no sense of pace, ADD editing, nothing breathes, the actors barely make a dent, and it so slavishly lays on the fan service that you can't help but walk out with a slight taste of puke in your mouth. The first one where I felt absolutely nothing throughout, even in scenes that, on paper, should be loaded with resonance. It is entirely a corporate product.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Spoiler-free review:

I'm still letting it sink in, but this is definitely one where I can see both sides. There are plenty of reasons to hate it and plenty of reasons to love it. This is a deeply silly movie, definitely the weakest of the trilogy, but it's hard to deny it has some great moments.

The visuals are spectacular. The writing is pretty bad throughout. Oscar Isaac disappoints, and Jon Boyega underwhelms. Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver are amazing and carry the film, to the extent that it can be carried.

That's about all I can say without spoilers.


SPOILERS

The first half hour is awful! I felt like I was watching "previously on Star Wars." They tried for propulsiveness, but what they got was suffocating. It's all perfunctory and chopped to pieces. Nothing has room to breathe. I just wanted a scene with a character talking to someone and having an emotion for a minute. Serious failure of vision. I think the film recovers, but yikes.

I'm not a fan of the numerous fakeout deaths. How do you explain the one with Chewy? "He must have gotten on a different ship." Really?

The film does not have a whole lot to say. I guess there's a message of resistance—"there are more of us," don't be tricked into feeling unempowered, etc. The one that I did like was the unspoken (but clearly demonstrated) message of compassion. Rey heals Ben, in a purely selfless act, which opens him to the light and the spirits of his parents, and he is then fully turned. Which allows him to return the favor. This 100% worked for me.

Rey's big moment discovering her lightning powers honestly took my breath away. The ensuing revelation—well, I'm still not sure how to feel about that. Certainly flirts with an actual serious retcon. ("They chose to be nobodies" is a streeeetch.) Arguably it's consistent, but I think it violates the spirit of The Last Jedi. That's fine, I guess; this is not Rian Johnson's movie. There are plenty of other things that JJ actually picks up from TLJ and rolls with in a very compelling way. He definitely picked up the Reylo baton. And I loved the way their force interactivity expands here.

As dumb and cheesy and telegraphed as it was, I actually really liked the ending. I would have preferred Rey being an actual nobody who randomly gets force powers. But this is honestly not a bad second option. She has to overcome her problematic heritage, choosing her own identity (Skywalker) and forging her own destiny. Does feel properly Star Wars.

[Alethia]

There's one moment - ONE - and it's fan service to the Nth degree, that should have flipped me out given my childhood, but instead yielded only a slight raise of the brows, and a muted "Oh." That's the most it got out of me.

It's a numbing experience.

C3P0 has the best bits, I'll give it that, but it ain't saying much at all.

[WorldForgot]

Biggest yikes of the year.

SPOILERS

Star Wars isn't a sacred object, but this felt, like, disrespectful to its own tropes. At best, it misunderstands what makes these movies thrilling. Chewy's fake out death reminds us stakes are only present when they're convenient for Disney. Then you get a memory fake-out with C3PO (unless I misunderstood that upload bit with R2)... Rey's "heritage" undermines so much of her essence, and, again, feels like it exists for plot convenience. Then, Kylo's death/exit goes without remark or a proper beat.

This movie removes any creative progression from the trilogy. Baffled that within their sandbox of cowboys, samurai, fairy-magic space-creatures these boardrooms refuse to get playful.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Having more issues with this the morning after. Realizing that the scenes I love comprise about 10 minutes of the movie. The rest is meh. It's frustrating, because you have scenes with writing and story completely devoid of imagination, in a setting with incredible visual imagination.


SPOILERS

Apparently what JJ is most proud of is bringing our main 3 characters together so they can bond and have meaningful adventures together. But he doesn't really allow that to happen. No bonding occurs in those scenes, because they're just rushing from one thing to another. When Poe joins the group hug with Rey and Finn, I was like, wait, what is Poe doing in there? Clearly not the response they were going for.

Also increasingly disappointed by the middle fingers given to The Last Jedi. JJ currently describes the trilogy this way: "a story that I think needed a pendulum swing in one direction in order to swing in the other." That's a perspective, I guess. But the things he discards from TLJ are character-centric things, so much that it feels like progress erased. Even the little things. Finn's lesson about not being suicidally heroic is not only discarded, it's reversed. And now Rose is like, okay, good luck! Bye! JJ did a complete personality-otomy on her, by the way. When he thought he'd removed all of her personality, he reached in there to scrape out any remaining bits. Rose appears as such a hollowed-out human that it would be better for her not to appear at all.

[WorldForgot]

Spoiler: ShowHide

it's almost as if there are two endings to the Skywalker Saga, in that choose your own adventure, branch-off sense:

Two sequels to Force Awakens, either you flip the page to The Last Jedi, or you flip to Rise of Skywalker.

[Alethia]

The Last Jedi feels more and more admirable to me, if not entirely successful, especially now that we have this shit fest to compare it to. At least Johnson fucking tried.