The Star Wars Cinematic Universe

[Dogg Thang]

My wife thought that this one was the best Star Wars she has ever seen. But she likes Prometheus so make of that what you will.

[Team Andromeda]

Bring back Rian Johnson, a man who had the balls to take Star Wars in a differnt direction.

[Neon Ignition]

Is the lesson studios should take from this as being a confirmation that if they want to revive/reboot a major franchise for mass popular audiences then they should hire JJ Abrams but if they then want a sequel to that hit they should avoid him like the plague? (Well, at least were old fans are concerned).

Edit: Also, it was noticeable how sidelined and arguably outright replaced Rose was but it just dawned on me as well how much R2D2 got shafted in this one as well

[Dogg Thang]

Star Trek Into Darkness would certainly back up that lesson.

[CMcK]

I’m still amazed this trilogy wasn’t plotted out long before they started filming. It all just seems a bit haphazard.

[CMcK]

Bring back Rian Johnson, a man who had the balls to take Star Wars in a differnt direction.

Isn’t he already working on more Star Wars films?

[Neon Ignition]

He was working on a trilogy, still is but apparently it's held pending as Lucasfilm decides how to proceed with the franchise

[Team Andromeda]

Isn’t he already working on more Star Wars films?

He should have made this one. It's clear after the backlash from Star Wars nerds JJ Abrams and Disney have sold out to them.So sad after the brilliant ending to the Last Jedi

Still enjoyed the film but it could have been so much more

[MartyG]

Curious what the casual audiences think too. For the missus TFA was 'fun', TLJ was 'a bit boring', Rogue One was 'crap', Solo was 'boring' and TROS was 'epic'

If you're going simply to be entertained and don't care about the lore and canon, then the film will do its job - if you're expecting the film to make sense in the Star Wars universe, then you're likely to be disappointed.

[Arashikage]

He should have made this one. It's clear after the backlash from Star Wars nerds JJ Abrams and Disney have sold out to them.So sad after the brilliant ending to the Last Jedi

Still enjoyed the film but it could have been so much more

Brilliant ending? As I recall the film’s ending didn’t give Episode IX anywhere to go hence Abrams effectively cramming two films into one. Johnson wrote the story into a corner.

[Team Andromeda]

Brilliant ending? As I recall the film’s ending didn’t give Episode IX anywhere to go hence Abrams effectively cramming two films into one. Johnson wrote the story into a corner.

It did. But then Rian Johnson had all the nerds after him and some even calling for Star Wars Last Jedi to be deleted from the Star War universe and so we get the sell out sequel to please the fans.

Still its Star Wars and meant for kids and so on that score, this film does the job and its a perfect popcorn movie

[Dogg Thang]

The one corner that needed writing out of after Last Jedi is the corner that Abrams completely ignored for most of the movie and then totally fudged and I’m not even sure he managed it - by that stage, the movie was so messy that it was hard to tell.

[teddymeow]

Not a great opening weekend.

https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a30307655/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-box-office-lowest-opening-weekend-trilogy/

[Dogg Thang]

So here is a very spoilery list of some of my main likes and dislikes of the movie. Some things I think were great and worth noting. And yet it was a total nonsensical mess often seemingly made for the wrong reasons. And yet I enjoyed it! So I’m a bit all over the place with the movie.

Beware spoilers!

->Open Spoiler<-

THINGS I LOVED

Adam Driver. He’s absolutely superb and really made this trilogy. I think Ridley is a really good counterpart but I don’t feel she was given the material in this one but she still did a great job. But Driver made Kylo Ren the most interesting character in this trilogy by a long way.

Evolution of force powers. I don’t care if nerds don’t like it - the original movies kept introducing new force tricks film by film and nothing ever said that’s it, that’s all there is. Unlike, say, lightspeed skipping, there is nothing in the movies to say this stuff shouldn’t be possible. And it gave us one of my absolute favourite moments of the movie: Rey putting her hand behind her back and passing the lightsaber to Ren. I adored that moment. It was new, exciting and very, very cool.

Babu Frick. That little guy was the highlight.

The new stuff. Actually, almost every new thing can join Babu Frick - new characters, new planets. Almost everything that was genuinely new in this movie was great. That masked Zori character was pretty cool and I wanted to see more of her.

Practical effects. The effects were superb and I was especially impressed by the practical effects. In a CG age, this really should get recognition. Fantastic to see and it all just looks so solid.

The Emperor His look was fantastic. Loved the zombie eyes, loved that they didn’t overdo the makeup when he was suspended by that creepy machine and basically the whole feel of him was spot on.

Ben’s redemption. Okay so I felt his death was a cop out because it avoided having to live with what he had done but I thought it would be pretty much impossible to buy any redemption given what he had done. And yet this movie pulled it off and I think it succeeded due to two things. 1 - the Han and Leia moments and 2 - that his redeeming act, unlike Vader, was not to kill something. Might be sacrilege but I never ever bought Vader’s redemption, even as a kid. I bought this one.

The ending. Had a tear in my eye seeing Rey on Tatooine. It was a beautiful image and a lovely tribute.


THINGS I DIDN’T LOVE

Rey Palpatine. Wow, this was awful, added nothing and made everything more stupid and trampled all over any idea that the force was for anyone. Nope, you have to have it in your family like being born rich. It didn’t even add any tension or bring anything worthwhile. Like, so what? It just brought up way more questions than it answered and tied into nothing already established. Undermined even Abram’s own movie because now I’m wondering why the Skywalker lightsaber called to her. In an attempt to ‘answer’ fan questions that didn’t need a further answer, he ignored his own.

Characters getting sidelined. Rose got totally shafted and I think that’s a pretty big issue given the circumstances but it wasn’t just Rose. Potentially one of the most interesting plot points in here was Hux turning on his own people. And then he’s gone in the next moment. Abrams throws even his own characters under a bus. Why bring in so many new characters in the last film of the series at the expense of characters that already exist?

The Emperor. Yep, I know he’s in my list of stuff I loved but, actually, he shouldn’t have been in it. He is introduced between movies (seriously?), a bit of hand waving on how he survived (anyone?) and just dropped in out of nowhere right at the start. At the end of Last Jedi, the First Order had reduced the resistance to nothing and already had control of the galaxy. We had a really interesting next stage lined up of Ren being Supreme Leader when we all know he’s not able for that. The last thing the next movie needed was more ships and a bigger bad guy.

Undermining the other movies. The Last Jedi rectons were incredibly mean-spirited and often cringeworthy to watch. Even Driver struggled with some of the clumsiness it caused. It was like Nerd’s Revenge and took me out of the movie each time. But it also rendered Return of the Jedi redundant (they talked to Lando about their win - um, the Emperor never died and the First Order popped up from the Empire so what did you win, guys?) and even abandoned much of The Force Awakens in the process, answering questions that shouldn’t have been asked while abandoning ideas and questions asked in that movie (where did you get Luke’s lightsaber, Maz?).

Lack of character arcs. Did anyone have one except for Ren? Rey’s story just ended up being distracted by the Palpatine thing. Finn, who was one of the most fun loveable characters from The Force Awakens and went on a real journey of growth in Last Jedi, got nothing in this movie other than plot devices. Same with Poe. Now Poe was a plot device character in Force Awakens but he was loveable and, like Finn, got real character development in Last Jedi. Here, he got a nugget of back story dropped in. That was it. And it was Han’s back story, adding nothing to this movie. The familiar characters were all let down by this movie.

Fudged messy plot. Oh boy, too much to mention here. From the awful McGuffin right at the start which came with zero plan all the way through to the end. Just random nonsense plot points with no commitment to anything. Chewie’s dead. Nope. Wait, how (did I miss something there)? 3PO is wiped. Nope. Rey is dead. Nope. Wait, how are they beating the First Order? Did they even beat the First Order at all? Weren’t those just the new Final Order ships? Who are all those other guys? Wait, did the main key to victory going from the previous movie to this one just happen off screen and Lando did it in half an hour? And Rey’s victory against the Emperor was mindless. So messy and awful.

The ending. Yeah I know it’s on my love list and I loved the feeling but... wait, Rey Skywalker? Why? She had a name. She barely knew the only living Skywalker and they didn’t even get on. Why would she do that? This film is nonsense.

There you go. Those are my likes/dislikes of the movie. Abrams is one of those directors who I think is superb at some stuff and very much not superb at some other things and, unfortunately, this film fell victim to that. And as you can see, I liked pretty much all his new stuff. I wish he’d had the confidence to run with his own ideas rather than pandering to ‘fans’ to undo a movie which actually brought character arcs to his characters and made a billion dollars in the process.

But it looked great and was an exciting ride and, hey, isn’t that what matters in the end?

[teddymeow]

Hey @dogg thank

Where do you stand on

->Open Spoiler<-

space horses

?