The Rise of Skywalker: Professional Reviews

rey09 wrote:Naboo would have been awesome but it would only work if they actually talked about Padme in this damn sequel, but nope. Ok and actually if Palps was also from Naboo it'd be even more interesting. Had they actually planned out everything, we could have gotten more palpatine history. ugh the more I think about the potentials, the more I get depressed. If they were so obsessed with this House Palpatine vs House Skywalker, you have to mention the beginning of the feud for the new generations to know about. Also nope.
We were so robbed.

@rey09

The House vs House is a very GoT thing. They really seem to just have gone with a collage of ideas. True about Padme. As said I am not fond of the PT but I find the absence of callbacks to Anakin and Padme in an overloaded-to-the-point-of-causing-nausea nostalgic movie unsettling. It’s just OT, OT, OT. They really thought copying hits would lead them to a hit too.

SanghaRen wrote:

rey09 wrote:Naboo would have been awesome but it would only work if they actually talked about Padme in this damn sequel, but nope. Ok and actually if Palps was also from Naboo it'd be even more interesting. Had they actually planned out everything, we could have gotten more palpatine history. ugh the more I think about the potentials, the more I get depressed. If they were so obsessed with this House Palpatine vs House Skywalker, you have to mention the beginning of the feud for the new generations to know about. Also nope.
We were so robbed.

@rey09

The House vs House is a very GoT thing.

@SanghaRen

I'm so bitter about this. Not every family saga has to be about House vs House. Actually most are not and focus on ONE family thru time. I've been saying this since TFA when people were wanting her to be part of some jedi family, like there are no jedi families!! It's only the skywalkers because of a forbidden relationship lol.

I loved the GOT houses but it was great for GOT. Now I do find the idea of rey palp interesting but it was executed so badly. If you are going to do it, you MUST explain all the generations otherwise it's dumb and leaves questions. And it's exactly what ppl want to know now- who her dad whats his story, does she have a grandmother etc.

This speaks to a lack of knowledge of family sagas sadly. Terrio and JJ are so dense.

SanghaRen wrote:

rey09 wrote:Naboo would have been awesome but it would only work if they actually talked about Padme in this damn sequel, but nope. Ok and actually if Palps was also from Naboo it'd be even more interesting. Had they actually planned out everything, we could have gotten more palpatine history. ugh the more I think about the potentials, the more I get depressed. If they were so obsessed with this House Palpatine vs House Skywalker, you have to mention the beginning of the feud for the new generations to know about. Also nope.
We were so robbed.

@rey09

The House vs House is a very GoT thing. They really seem to just have gone with a collage of ideas. True about Padme. As said I am not fond of the PT but I find the absence of callbacks to Anakin and Padme in an overloaded-to-the-point-of-causing-nausea nostalgic movie unsettling. It’s just OT, OT, OT. They really thought copying hits would lead them to a hit too.

@SanghaRen

If it were at least GOOD and CLEVER copy paste. But it´s mostly patched together so ill-fitting and heavy-handed, no words.
Almost two weeks and I still don´t get what the hell came over them. I will never get it, so sad.

Here we goooo! she is NOT happy! lol

This, or the movie should have been cancelled because Carrie (Leia) was the focus of IX, and only the Art of Book is released.

Disney Should Have Delayed ‘Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker’ To 2020

"I’m not saying releasing The Rise of Skywalker in summer 2020 or December of 2020 would have solved every problem with the uncommonly dissatisfying Star Wars sequel. Hiring almost any director other than J.J. Abrams would likely have resulted in a threequel that, while potentially different from Star Wars VII and Star Wars VIII, at least didn’t spend much of its running time backtracking on the sequel. If Disney really did listen to the angry Star Wars YouTube demographic and take them for gospel, that’s on them. However, Disney was already going to own 2019 in a walk. The only reason to release Star Wars IX this year was to get it onto Disney+ early next year.

Pushing The Rise of Skywalker into next year would have allowed for extra time to iron out the story, character and plotting issues, including perhaps improving the photorealism of the Carrie Fisher scenes so that specifically the ones allegedly featuring Rose Tico didn’t end up on the cutting room floor. Even if extra time wouldn’t have improved the movie, it couldn’t have hurt. It would have been better for Rise of Skywalker, better for the theatrical Star Wars franchise and better for Walt Disney in terms of having one sure-fire mega-hit for 2020 after an already ridiculous 2019. Now Disney better hope the next Star Wars is an Aquaman-like recovery when it opens December 16, 2022 against.. Aquaman 2."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2020/12/30/box-office-rushing-rise-of-skywalker-into-theaters-hurt-disney-and-star-wars-as-did-rushing-justice-league-hurt-dc-films/#47ebf6874ad5

I think Donna Dickens is the only feminist* that loves the movie because she's a huge Legends fan.  She feels it's the perfect hybrid of the old and new.  *I will say one thing about anti (feminist) consistency, most do not like TRoS because of how it ends and that she was Rey Palpatine (along with their vendetta against Reylo and Bendemption).

Her review:

https://www.slashfilm.com/the-rise-of-skywalker-lore/

"It has been three days since I have seen Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I’ve also struggled to put my thoughts down, as my colleagues’ critical consensus is as far from my own experience with Episode IX as diametrically possible. In short, I loved every weird, twisty, lore-heavy second of Lucasfilm’s final installment in the Skywalker Saga. It was everything I wanted, including a few things I hadn’t even dared to hope to see. So how did I end up here, while so many other pop culture critics ended up on the other side of the fandom chasm?

I don’t know. And frankly, that’s okay. Instead, I’m going to dive into why Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker worked so well for me and many other fans who have long been invested in the conclusion of the Skywalker legacy.


For me, the most important thing to remember about Star Wars is that it is a fairy tale. Each film begins with “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.” This is the sci-fi equivalent of “Once upon a time.” George Lucas based Star Wars on the spaghetti westerns he grew up with: serials that borrowed heavily from both samurai films of Japan and “sword-and-sandal” epics filled with ancient mythology. Blending those elements added up to a soap opera in space, with all the twists, reveals, and “from a certain point of view” switchbacks that come with the territory. In short, at the end of the day, Star Wars is the story of a space wizard family and their magical, sentient swords.

Star Wars began life as a simple black-and-white morality tale that evolved into an epic saga about the Skywalker family. Each film built upon the last. First, there was only Luke Skywalker, orphan farmboy. Then, The Empire Strikes Back revealed Darth Vader began life as Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father. The narrative was expanded again with the addition of Princess Leia Organa as Luke’s secret twin sister in Return of the Jedi. The potency of the Skywalker family was confirmed in The Phantom Menace with Anakin being a virgin birth, a child of prophecy meant to bring balance to the Force. Whatever “balance” means when the galaxy if full of thousands of Jedi and exactly two Sith.

Jedi can and do come from every corner of the Star Wars galaxy. Prior to Attack of the Clones, their order numbered around 10,000. A minuscule percentage in a galaxy of over 100 quadrillion sentient individuals. Supplemental materials to the main Star Wars movies have given us some of its best characters. Ahsoka Tano, Anakin’s Togruta padawan is perhaps the best-known Jedi outside of the live-action films. Ezra Bridger and Kanan Jarrus from Star Wars Rebels have fleshed out what it meant to be Force-sensitive in the years immediately after the destruction of the Jedi Order. Comics, novels, and video games have delved into the histories of the likes of Mace Windu, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, and Count Dooku. We’ve met Cal Kaetis and Cere Junda, Shaak Ti and Luminara Unduli. Each one a Jedi or former Jedi with no blood ties to either the Skywalker bloodline or the Palpatine family.

This is why I never understood the desire to disconnect Rey from the Skywalker lineage. The films are about a very specific family line, most likely begun through the machinations of Palpatine via Force manipulation. An extremely male-dominated family line that shunted aside Leia in favor of a more traditional “hero’s journey” archetype in Luke. I’ve talked at length about my minority opinion that The Last Jedi either misstepped or misdirected by having Kylo Ren convince Rey she was no one. But here’s the pertinent part:

“While Chosen One narratives are old as time, most of them have been about white men. I will stand by my guns that women and PoC deserve this power fantasy and Episode IX can make a liar of Kylo Ren.”

So to have The Rise of Skywalker reveal Rey’s parents were “no one” only from a certain point of view felt very in line with the themes of the saga. Rey’s isn’t any more beholden to Palpatine than Kylo Ren – possibly the great-grandson of Sheev Palpatine via space magic – Luke and Leia Skywalker, or Anakin Skywalker are. Though I suppose the increasing power levels through each generation proves why the Jedi Order banned their members from getting it on.

Speaking of forbidden love, I went into The Rise of Skywalker in trepidation of how the film would handle Rey’s connection to Kylo Ren. The Last Jedi set them up as star-crossed lovers, a strange turn of events considering Kylo spent the entire run of The Force Awakens stalking, kidnapping, and literally mind-raping Rey while she was strapped to a gurney in a very purposefully uncomfortable scene. But there was no denying the chemistry between the characters. Splitting the difference was an excellent compromise. At the end of the day, Kylo Ren got exactly what he wanted: he became like his grandfather, Darth Vader. By sacrificing himself to save Rey from death, Ben Solo got a redemption arc. But letting him die, Kylo Ren wasn’t let off the hook for participating in the enslavement of children, actual genocide, and patricide.

I’ve seen the argument that Ben Solo should have been allowed to live because he was being influenced by Palpatine his entire life, molded into the monster he became. But that argument doesn’t hold water for me, because Finn is right there. Another person who was manipulated from early childhood by evil forces, in a much more direct and unforgiving way. Stolen from his parents, stripped of his name, and trained to follow orders without hesitation or thought, Finn never broke. The First Order spent Finn’s entire life trying to mold him into a perfect weapon, yet when it came down to it, he made the choice not to fire on innocent civilians. Kylo Ren had a choice, and he chose darkness.

But mostly, The Rise of Skywalker worked for me because it is a love letter to lore nerds. To those of us who poured countless hours into the Expanded Universe, only to have it be cast aside and rebranded as Legends, it’s a breath of fresh air. Abrams pulls extensively from the reject pile, shining up each plot point and reconfiguring it to work with the story being told. While the most obvious is the return of Palpatine, my favorite conversion of a Legend to canon was the story of Princess Leia Organa, Jedi. Finally, after four decades, audiences not only got to see Leia Organa wield a lightsaber, they got to see once and for all that she was better at it than Luke.

On Ahch-To, Luke’s Force Ghost tells Rey the story of how he came to be in possession of Leia’s lightsaber. After the Battle of Endor, Luke trained Leia on the very same planet, using the very same courses, that Leia would return to for Rey’s training. He says Leia chose to end her training when she had a Force vision of the future, but the line sells Leia short. The woman had made a lightsaber. She was a Force Ghost at the end of The Rise of Skywalker. She survived the vacuum of space. All extremely advanced skills. She was a Jedi.

But most heart-breakingly, Leia gave a gift of her son, Ben Solo. At the climactic turning point of Kylo Ren’s arc, Leia reaches out across the galaxy with the last of her strength in a Hail Mary attempt to return Ben to the light. Yet her body does not dissipate until after Ben’s death, much later. Lore nerds know Jedi don’t fade into the Cosmic Force until they are truly gone. With Carrie Fisher’s untimely death, Harrison Ford (bless him) stepped into the void left by her passing. Han Solo can’t be a Force Ghost, but there he was anyway. You can almost see the original idea: Leia projecting herself across space, much like Luke did in the climatic Battle of Crait in The Last Jedi. But without Fisher, instead audiences are left to piece together that Leia is sending a vision of Han to shepherd their son away from the darkness. Then she stayed with him until the end of the line.

Then there are the dozens and dozens of little pieces of lore woven throughout the story. The concept of Rey and Kylo Ren being a dyad adds a new layer of nuance both to the Sith “Rule of Two” and the yin and yang mosaic of the “Prime Jedi” in the Ahch-To temple. The Wayfinders, fashioned in the style of Sith holocrons, being able to navigate the shifting landscape of hyperspace anomalies in a similar manner to the space-faring Purrgill aka space whales. Rey learning the ancient art of Jedi healing from the Sacred Texts she “borrowed” from Luke, and in turn, accidentally teaching the life-saving skill to Kylo Ren via their Force-bond. A narrative rhyme from when he accidentally showed Rey how to access the Force via the same means in The Force Awakens. The fact that Finn is Force-sensitive (and probably Jannah too, based on her story of how her entire legion mutinied). Poe Dameron running away from his family’s legacy as heroes of the Battle of Endor in his teens, only to return (probably when his father died) to take up the mantle of responsibility. The return to Mustafar and the cultists who worship the legend of Darth Vader. The reveal of the Sith Eternal, an ancient civilization biding their time in the Unknown Regions, bent on galactic domination. The admonishment that a lightsaber, which is imbued with a sentient kyber crystal that bonds with the Jedi it chooses during an ancient ritual, should be treated with a modicum of respect. Chewbacca being gifted Han Solo’s medal of honor, the way you’d give dog tags to a fallen soldier’s family. Rey’s lightsaber being the extremely rare yellow of a Jedi Sentinel. All of these things were a metaphorical glass raised in toast to 42 years worth of ridiculous, scenery-chewing, optimistic entertainment.

That’s not to say The Rise of Skywalker didn’t have room for improvement. Rumor has it the film at one point had a four-hour edit. The Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker visual dictionary proves as much. Things were left on the cutting room floor that would have better served the story, especially in regards to Rose Tico. Sidelined in favor of getting Finn, Poe, and Rey back together, Rose still played an important role that appears to have been sacrificed in the name of runtime. Those hyperspace skips Poe does at the beginning of The Rise of Skywalker? Those are only possible because Rose created a way for him to do it in (relative) safety. It grew out of an initiative she started in order to find a way to stop the First Order from tracking the Resistance’s ships through hyperspace. Rose also created a brand-new way to drop proton bombs from B-wing and Y-wing fighters, instead of relying on ponderous bombing ships. She named the new system “the Paiger” in honor of her late sister. Rose was also doing encryption work with the Resistance droids and reverse engineering First Order tech to bypass their jamming and find other weaknesses. All things used in the final battle. Truly I wish they had left that subplot in there instead of turning the character into a cypher. Another 20 minutes wouldn’t have hurt anything, Disney!

Other complaints are mere quibbles. For fans who weren’t heavily into the Legends lore or mainlining all the new content Disney has put out, I wish they had found time to explain that Palpatine had been puppeteering the galaxy for decades (if not centuries). I wish Lando’s time on Pasana had gotten fleshed out more instead of the details relegated to the visual dictionary where we learn the tragedies that befell him after the Battle of Endor which led to his self-imposed exile. I wish we’d seen a map of the of Endor system, just to better confirm where the Ewok homeworld is in location to the Ocean Moon graveyard of the Death Star. And, of course, I wish Disney hadn’t been cowards. Let Finn and Poe be boyfriends! Or put all your chips in and just make Poe, Finn, and Rey an official throuple. Just look at the way they were all holding hands at the end!

Overall though, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was exactly what I wanted: a weird, mystical conclusion that wasn’t afraid to dip a toe into the more bizarre end of the Star Wars mythos. I, for one, can’t wait to see where Lucasfilm goes next."

“While Chosen One narratives are old as time, most of them have been about white men. I will stand by my guns that women and PoC deserve this power fantasy and Episode IX can make a liar of Kylo Ren.”

Rey’s isn’t any more beholden to Palpatine than Kylo Ren – possibly the great-grandson of Sheev Palpatine via space magic – Luke and Leia Skywalker, or Anakin Skywalker are.

Rey learning the ancient art of Jedi healing from the Sacred Texts she “borrowed” from Luke, and in turn, accidentally teaching the life-saving skill to Kylo Ren via their Force-bond.

If only Palpatine, Jedi Council and Anakin could have found these Sacred Texts, which Rey actually didn't borrow from Luke because they didn't belong to him.

I’ve seen the argument that Ben Solo should have been allowed to live because he was being influenced by Palpatine his entire life, molded into the monster he became. But that argument doesn’t hold water for me, because Finn is right there. Another person who was manipulated from early childhood by evil forces, in a much more direct and unforgiving way. Stolen from his parents, stripped of his name, and trained to follow orders without hesitation or thought, Finn never broke. The First Order spent Finn’s entire life trying to mold him into a perfect weapon, yet when it came down to it, he made the choice not to fire on innocent civilians. Kylo Ren had a choice, and he chose darkness.

Oh you deserve to live only if you are fighting evil manipulations better. Though I don't remember that Finn was targeted alone by the Biggest Evil of the Galaxy, Palpatine, who then accomplished to manipulate Rey in 3 minutes to give up - until she was saved by Ben. Additionally, Finn is not special anymore, all Force Sensetive kids can run from FO now LOL

The Last Jedi set them up as star-crossed lovers, a strange turn of events considering Kylo spent the entire run of The Force Awakens stalking, kidnapping, and literally mind-raping Rey while she was strapped to a gurney in a very purposefully uncomfortable scene.

When you put the bad faith arguments like this, your biases are showing, reviewer. Chasing and capturing the enemy become stalking and kidnapping. Yeah, you're sooo objective and unbiased.

The bold is simply not true. How convenient is to forget the entering each other's mind, recognizing the energy between them, that they're the same in the level of force sensitivity, being f***** force dyad. That Kylo could start to think there's something for him personally there, a connection, a soul mate, that he wanted to teach her instead of kill her? That Rey could feel something too? That the dark side of sexuality exists? Sure, reviewer, it must have been sooo strange turn of events.  

Honestly, the amount of dogmatism and the strictly narrow range of inflammatory language the antis stick to all the time disqualify them intellectually from any discussion. I have worked with feminists of various kinds, activists, students, academics, experts, for last 20 years, and I never witnessed anyone older than 21 exhibiting this level of obtuseness.

@special_cases @MaddieDove

I adore you two!  Microphone drop geniuses!

Yeah - it's amazing how personal biases about SW will cause wacky behavior among people.

Donna is either late 30s or early 40s (maybe she's older than me), she HAS to know better, yet she's stubborn because of her SW biases.

special_cases wrote:

“While Chosen One narratives are old as time, most of them have been about white men. I will stand by my guns that women and PoC deserve this power fantasy and Episode IX can make a liar of Kylo Ren.”

Rey’s isn’t any more beholden to Palpatine than Kylo Ren – possibly the great-grandson of Sheev Palpatine via space magic – Luke and Leia Skywalker, or Anakin Skywalker are.

Rey learning the ancient art of Jedi healing from the Sacred Texts she “borrowed” from Luke, and in turn, accidentally teaching the life-saving skill to Kylo Ren via their Force-bond.

If only Palpatine, Jedi Council and Anakin could have found these Sacred Texts, which Rey actually didn't borrow from Luke because they didn't belong to him.

I’ve seen the argument that Ben Solo should have been allowed to live because he was being influenced by Palpatine his entire life, molded into the monster he became. But that argument doesn’t hold water for me, because Finn is right there. Another person who was manipulated from early childhood by evil forces, in a much more direct and unforgiving way. Stolen from his parents, stripped of his name, and trained to follow orders without hesitation or thought, Finn never broke. The First Order spent Finn’s entire life trying to mold him into a perfect weapon, yet when it came down to it, he made the choice not to fire on innocent civilians. Kylo Ren had a choice, and he chose darkness.

Oh you deserve to live only if you are fighting evil manipulations better. Though I don't remember that Finn was targeted alone by the Biggest Evil of the Galaxy, Palpatine, who then accomplished to manipulate Rey in 3 minutes to give up - until she was saved by Ben. Additionally, Finn is not special anymore, all Force Sensetive kids can run from FO now LOL

@special_cases

just because Matt Martin says something something on twitter will never stop the general fandom from believing in part that Sheev is responsible for the creation of Anakin.. sorry.. that part of the story has germinated to long in the conscious of the fanboy audience...

spacebaby45678 wrote:

special_cases wrote:

“While Chosen One narratives are old as time, most of them have been about white men. I will stand by my guns that women and PoC deserve this power fantasy and Episode IX can make a liar of Kylo Ren.”

Rey’s isn’t any more beholden to Palpatine than Kylo Ren – possibly the great-grandson of Sheev Palpatine via space magic – Luke and Leia Skywalker, or Anakin Skywalker are.

Rey learning the ancient art of Jedi healing from the Sacred Texts she “borrowed” from Luke, and in turn, accidentally teaching the life-saving skill to Kylo Ren via their Force-bond.

If only Palpatine, Jedi Council and Anakin could have found these Sacred Texts, which Rey actually didn't borrow from Luke because they didn't belong to him.

I’ve seen the argument that Ben Solo should have been allowed to live because he was being influenced by Palpatine his entire life, molded into the monster he became. But that argument doesn’t hold water for me, because Finn is right there. Another person who was manipulated from early childhood by evil forces, in a much more direct and unforgiving way. Stolen from his parents, stripped of his name, and trained to follow orders without hesitation or thought, Finn never broke. The First Order spent Finn’s entire life trying to mold him into a perfect weapon, yet when it came down to it, he made the choice not to fire on innocent civilians. Kylo Ren had a choice, and he chose darkness.

Oh you deserve to live only if you are fighting evil manipulations better. Though I don't remember that Finn was targeted alone by the Biggest Evil of the Galaxy, Palpatine, who then accomplished to manipulate Rey in 3 minutes to give up - until she was saved by Ben. Additionally, Finn is not special anymore, all Force Sensetive kids can run from FO now LOL

@special_cases

just because Matt Martin says something something on twitter will never stop the general fandom from believing in part that Sheev is responsible for the creation of Anakin.. sorry.. that part of the story has germinated to long in the conscious of the fanboy audience...

@spacebaby45678

First of all - love your Avatar - Le Femme Nikita!!!

You make an interesting point about Palpatine's involvement with Anakin's conception to ingrained with OT fans/Original EU/Legends fans (referring to those open minded about the ST, not those who refused to like it). That if LF wanted to completely end it, should the comic have been more blunt, or somehow mentioned/ended in the ST that Palpatine had no involvement?

special_cases wrote:

I’ve seen the argument that Ben Solo should have been allowed to live because he was being influenced by Palpatine his entire life, molded into the monster he became. But that argument doesn’t hold water for me, because Finn is right there. Another person who was manipulated from early childhood by evil forces, in a much more direct and unforgiving way. Stolen from his parents, stripped of his name, and trained to follow orders without hesitation or thought, Finn never broke. The First Order spent Finn’s entire life trying to mold him into a perfect weapon, yet when it came down to it, he made the choice not to fire on innocent civilians. Kylo Ren had a choice, and he chose darkness.

Oh you deserve to live only if you are fighting evil manipulations better. Though I don't remember that Finn was targeted alone by the Biggest Evil of the Galaxy, Palpatine, who then accomplished to manipulate Rey in 3 minutes to give up - until she was saved by Ben. Additionally, Finn is not special anymore, all Force Sensetive kids can run from FO now LOL

@special_cases

LOL
This was one of the stupidest concept I ever read.
So now being kidnapped and brainwashed (of course a terrible thing) is worse than being mentally manipulated all your life? Manipulated by dark forces so this goes beyond pure psychological manipulation.
Apparently nope according to this review... being targeted by none less that Palpy aka the big bad guy is not enough to make you a victim

This review is as dumb as the movie itself.

But mostly, The Rise of Skywalker worked for me because it is a love letter to lore nerds. To those of us who poured countless hours into the Expanded Universe, only to have it be cast aside and rebranded as Legends, it’s a breath of fresh air. Abrams pulls extensively from the reject pile, shining up each plot point and reconfiguring it to work with the story being told. While the most obvious is the return of Palpatine, my favorite conversion of a Legend to canon was the story of Princess Leia Organa, Jedi. Finally, after four decades, audiences not only got to see Leia Organa wield a lightsaber, they got to see once and for all that she was better at it than Luke.

Slightly bitter because the EU is no longer canon, are we?

Yupp, and this EU recyling worked absolutely brilliant in these two examples, the Palpatine return was worked in seamless, and without Jedi Leia my life had no sense.

I'm an old EU fan. It's not a love letter to me. It would be if they took the best parts of it, not the worst ones.

SW_Heroine_Journey wrote:

spacebaby45678 wrote:

special_cases wrote:

“While Chosen One narratives are old as time, most of them have been about white men. I will stand by my guns that women and PoC deserve this power fantasy and Episode IX can make a liar of Kylo Ren.”

Rey’s isn’t any more beholden to Palpatine than Kylo Ren – possibly the great-grandson of Sheev Palpatine via space magic – Luke and Leia Skywalker, or Anakin Skywalker are.

Rey learning the ancient art of Jedi healing from the Sacred Texts she “borrowed” from Luke, and in turn, accidentally teaching the life-saving skill to Kylo Ren via their Force-bond.

If only Palpatine, Jedi Council and Anakin could have found these Sacred Texts, which Rey actually didn't borrow from Luke because they didn't belong to him.

I’ve seen the argument that Ben Solo should have been allowed to live because he was being influenced by Palpatine his entire life, molded into the monster he became. But that argument doesn’t hold water for me, because Finn is right there. Another person who was manipulated from early childhood by evil forces, in a much more direct and unforgiving way. Stolen from his parents, stripped of his name, and trained to follow orders without hesitation or thought, Finn never broke. The First Order spent Finn’s entire life trying to mold him into a perfect weapon, yet when it came down to it, he made the choice not to fire on innocent civilians. Kylo Ren had a choice, and he chose darkness.

Oh you deserve to live only if you are fighting evil manipulations better. Though I don't remember that Finn was targeted alone by the Biggest Evil of the Galaxy, Palpatine, who then accomplished to manipulate Rey in 3 minutes to give up - until she was saved by Ben. Additionally, Finn is not special anymore, all Force Sensetive kids can run from FO now LOL

@special_cases

just because Matt Martin says something something on twitter will never stop the general fandom from believing in part that Sheev is responsible for the creation of Anakin.. sorry.. that part of the story has germinated to long in the conscious of the fanboy audience...

@spacebaby45678

First of all - love your Avatar - Le Femme Nikita!!!

You make an interesting point about Palpatine's involvement with Anakin's conception to ingrained with OT fans/Original EU/Legends fans (referring to those open minded about the ST, not those who refused to like it). That if LF wanted to completely end it, should the comic have been more blunt, or somehow mentioned/ended in the ST that Palpatine had no involvement?

@SW_Heroine_Journey

Le Femme Nikita.. just was having some nostalgic feelings ... that show was everything.

I think if they wanted to make Rey a Palpatine.. Anakin's conception was something that NEEDED to be revisited in TROS to DEBUNK it once and for all.

I am sorry but the Rey Palpy is a fail but will continue to fail in the future... and haters will forever throw the incest shade at Reylo

Geralt_Riv wrote:I'm an old EU fan. It's not a love letter to me. It would be if they took the best parts of it, not the worst ones.

@Geralt_Riv

Same! In fact one of the reasons I fell in love with the Reylo dymanic is because it reminded me of Luke and Mara somewhat and the parallels are even more apparent with TROS. That being said, TROS was a slap in the face for me as an EU fan, especially with how the Skywalker family was treated.

It's always difficult to know if people are really writing their real opinion or if they're trying to go against the tide to be different. In the beginning of her article she acknowledges that her experience was very different from her colleagues. She knows there's people who actually enjoyed the movie, so, she knows she's validating these people.

I don't know her, but @SW_Heroine_Journey said she's a feminist. I believe I'm a feminist myself, but a feminist person doesn't necessarily embodies the feminist movement. It's hard to see her as a feminist, when she seems so clueless about the women in the movie.

Looks like she is a fan of Leia. But, what would be more important for the real Leia, to be a jedi or to have her son alive? The movie tried to put each female in the dream male box. Leia and Rey were validated as heroins because they are the male reference of heroins.

Rose was erased because she doesn't fit this reference.

When she compares Kylo and Finn that's so stupid. She shows that she has no empathy. I didn't know people have a deadline to change their mind, to try to do the good thing. Apparently Kylo was too late and because of that he deserves to die. What an awful message is that? Not to tell that we are all different and that we respond to things differently. Or should we believe that Kelly Marie Tran was really a weak person since JB also suffered bully but he stayed on SNS? People are different, people respond the same things in different ways.

It's ok for you to like the movie, but her reasons are just awful and selfish.

I'm a feminist (the annoying kind) and trust me, this dogmatism so predominant in anti circles has nothing to do with feminism, but with people trying to use feminism as a shield for their hot takes.

Piper Maru wrote:I'm a feminist (the annoying kind) and trust me, this dogmatism so predominant in anti circles has nothing to do with feminism, but with people trying to use feminism as a shield for their hot takes.

@Piper Maru

The same feeling I had, as well.

I have a feeling that if it was any other franchise or story, they would not be antis, or have this outlook. However, it's something about SW that causes this ugliness.

It's pretty obvious this lady despises Kylo, which is probably why she liked the movie!


Seriously, I'm getting pretty tired of all this 'toxic femininity'. I'm a proud feminist, but the likes of Emmeline Pankhurst wanted women to be seen as men's equals, not their superiors. My mum and gran were two of the strongest women I've ever known, but they were very happily married, to men who admired and were proud of them.
Pushing this agenda in a movie suitable for children leaves a nasty taste in my mouth, and if I had a daughter I wouldn't want Rey as a role model for her.
Secondly can we just stop with the 'mind rape' c*** already? I'm heartily sick of this constantly being trotted out as a 'reason' to prove Reylo was an abusive ship.

I don't know if anyone here has seen the film X2, but there's a scene in it where Professor X, one of comic and moviedom's greatest humanitarians, uses his telepathic powers to mentally 'freeze' an entire room full of men, women and children, then erases part of their memories. He does this again, later in the film.
Isn't this a kind of mind rape? Yet he gets a free pass, because he did it for the 'greater good'.
Kylo did NOT mind rape Rey. Unlike when he tortured Poe, he was careful and tried not to hurt her. Five minutes later Rey used a Jedi mind trick on her guard. Was that mind rape?

Throughout the entire trilogy, Kylo repeatedly held back from physically hurting Rey, despite her not having any restraint on hurting HIM. She tried to shoot him in TLJ. She scarred his face and shoulder in TFA.Worsevthan either of those, she rammed his own lightsabre through his abdomen in TROS. Yet she's still a paragon of virtue because she's female.

As for the Finn/Kylo comparisons.....yes, Finn had a bad childhood. But it was a completely different situation with what Kylo endured. And it's unfair to compare the two. It's like trying to say that being abused physically or mentally is not as bad as being abused sexually when they are ALL equally bad, but have different results on their victims.


Sadly, toxic feminicity is on the rise these days. And it doesn't do women's rights any favours.

Oh that's not a film reviewer as much as the entire fandom/social media landscape of big name fans. She's somebody who popped up when I first went online after seeing TFA and quickly muted because yes, the predominant tone of online geek/nerd subculture is horribly misogynistic. But she's not so much a film critic/historian/theorist as she's a very typical 'extremely online' type who uses a particular set of topics as a pretext to constantly get into fights/scream at other people in a way that's not particularly interesting or even enlightening/empowering.

Great article by Eliana Dockterman, Why It's Problematic That Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Retcons the Plot of The Last Jedi:

It’s impossible to assess Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in a vacuum. Each movie in the latest Star Wars trilogy has been a response to the one that came before it. If J.J. Abrams’ first entry, The Force Awakens, tried to avoid the fate of the ill-reviewed prequel movies by hewing a little too closely to the plot of the original Star Wars film, A New Hope, then Rian Johnson’s inventive Last Jedi questioned why fans and directors worship at the altar of old I.P. instead of forging ahead with something new.

Johnson’s thesis offered a way forward for films too often bogged down by their predecessors. And yet it proved rather unpopular with a small but loud contingent of fans who have put quite a bit of time and energy into their worship of what came before, namely Luke Skywalker.

The Rise of Skywalker is not just a thematic refutation of what came before. It feels as if Abrams read every critical tweet in Johnson’s mentions from the last two years and answered each one, scene by scene.

Mad about Johnson’s cheekiness? Don’t worry, there’s a scene in The Rise of Skywalker in which Luke awkwardly explains that he was wrong when he said the Jedi Order needed to end and that Rey should go confront the big, bad Emperor Palpatine to save the Jedi religion. When Rey tries to toss away her lightsaber, Luke scolds her, “A Jedi’s weapon ought to be treated with more respect,” admonishing his actions in the last movies as much as hers.

For those who complained that Rey, Finn and Poe — the new trio of heroes — were all split up in the last movie, The Rise of Skywalker features at least three different MacGuffins for them to pursue together. In perhaps the most shameful apparent surrender to toxic fandom, launching Rey with Finn and Poe into space means that Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose is sidelined. She stays at home, working on ships, uttering only a few lines. The kiss she shared with Finn at the end of the last movie is never acknowledged or discussed. It’s hard not to see this as a victory for the trolls.

And then there’s the biggest change of all: Rey’s origin story. There was a rather sexist argument circulating that Rey couldn’t possibly become such a powerful Jedi in such a short period of time, despite the fact that Luke had done just that. In what feels like a direct response to that silly argument, The Rise of Skywalker includes a very long scene of Rey training to be a Jedi on an obstacle course. And for those who believed that Rey had to be related to someone we’d seen before in the Star Wars universe in order to ever wield that kind of power, guess what? Abrams retcons Johnson’s decision to make Rey a nobody in an incredibly clunky conversation between Kylo and Rey. Kylo awkwardly clarifies that he didn’t technically lie to her before when he said her parents were filthy junk traders because her parents were hiding as filthy junk traders.

Great dialogue, it was not.

But being able to bring back any character means death doesn’t carry much weight in this universe anymore. What’s to say the Emperor couldn’t resurrect himself yet again? When Kylo revived Rey at the end of the movie, it wouldn’t have been shocking if she had done the same for him, each transferring their Life Force into each other for the rest of eternity. (Free idea, SNL.) By refusing to let go of the past, this series has become devoid of meaning or consequence.

Abrams has always praised The Last Jedi for its “subversions” and “bold choices,” but he also recently told the New York Times, “I don’t think that people go to Star Wars to be told, ‘This doesn’t matter.’” (The cast, similarly, seemed to throw Johnson under the bus, with John Boyega intimating that The Last Jedi was a “hard shoot,” Daisy Ridley admitting she cried for joy when Abrams rejoined the films and Mark Hamill admitting he was “demoralized” by Johnson’s choices.)

But fans don’t make great filmmakers. Their reverence for what came before leaves little room for artistry or invention. And their bullying ruins the fun — both on and off camera.

Source: Time

Couldn't put it better myself.

There's a lot I don't like about this film, from it's shameful treatment of half the cast to how they destroyed Rian's wonderful shades of grey version of the SW universe, from a not so holier than thou Resistance to acceptance that the Jedi were wrong on many levels to you didn't have to be a 'somebody' to be a hero.
But two things I will never forgive them for is making Rey into the Mary Sue we repeatedly said she wasn't. And killing off the last real Skywalker, in a manner that was not only inane but cruel - Leia loses her son, but it's cool because she's got Palpatine's granddaughter and a former drug dealer who killed half his comrades in a d*** waving exercise.
After all, they are so much purer than the child they neglected, abandoned and now it seems have conveniently forgot.


It doesn't make Luke and Leia look very good, does it?

Aside from the tone deaf treatment of Rey in using the character as a stand-in for aging fanboy nostalgia, the other part of this movie which really bothered me was the "ignite the Green" attitude towards the Force and Force Powers. Which is an ongoing split in how the movies have treated the Force, but I always loved the weird, transcendental ramifications of it that was at the center of Rey's journey and continues the critiques of the Jedi as an out-of-touch elite

The Rise of Skywalker leaves the Jedi in a state of confusion

In the end, the film repositions the Jedi and the Sith along a simplistic binary, in which “good” spirits fight “bad” ones. Rey doesn’t work through any sort of complexity about her Jedi-hood or her place in the world the way Luke had to in The Last Jedi, when he faced his past mistakes. It’s as if Rey is simply “chosen” by the side of good, with its faults swept under the rug, rather than having to arrive at a version of goodness herself. When Kylo redeems himself by using the Force to resurrect Rey, his death isn’t deemed worthy of that same resurrection. It’s as if the Force, through familiar aesthetics and story beats that predetermine “good” and “evil,” makes these major decisions about life and death instead of characters being able to do so. Morality becomes mutable when the Force has plans of its own.

Similarly, when Finn mentions the Force having awakened the good in him (something fellow former stormtrooper Jannah experienced as well), there’s no attempt by anyone in the film to awaken this goodness in other brainwashed stormtroopers. The Rise of Skywalker is the rare Star Wars film where the camera dips downward to focus on fallen troopers after they’ve been shot — not as a statement about violence, but merely as gut-punch visual. It happens but once in the film, but its meaning is especially bizarre in this particular story. Finn and Jannah’s conversation grants personhood to these brainwashed soldiers, but the rest of the film never approaches them the same way. They continue to be treated as disposable extras, dying left and right despite their potential for good. The film frames Finn and Jannah as being “chosen” by the Force, rather than as agents of the Force who can, in turn, awaken the innate morality in others. Despite the film’s many callbacks to Return of the Jedi, a movie that crystallizes the Skywalker Saga’s redemption themes, Rise ends up as the anti-Star Wars.

Rey fails to establish an identity outside the flawed and rigid dogma of the Jedi Order. The Rise of Skywalker places the weight of that dogma upon her when she opens herself up to all the Jedi of the past, and treats this act not as a burden or an emotional hurdle to be parsed, but as a badge of honor. It does so without consequence, treating the Jedi and the Force as de facto good, rather than as ideas that flawed characters can use for self-betterment and for the betterment of others.

The ST keeps pointing out the brainwashed stormtroopers thing, and sort of brainwashed Kylo, and even the sith troopers are apparently the children of the sith cultists of Exogol. And I guess we're all hunky dory with this?

Anyway, the movie does really feel like anti-SW, which is the opposite of what a conclusion is supposed to do. That's what's so hard to reconcile.