Official TROS Spoilers discussion

I have to say that I honestly can't remember 90% of the plot of the movie. I know what happened on an intellectual level, but it's all so poorly written, edited and filmed that it's just a blurry mess to my brain. It's not a surprise to me that people simply don't care/don't remember.

And TLJ haters didn't like TROS, they're just acting out of spite. TROS ruined their favorite OT characters even more than TLJ did.

And about the dyad... no point in looking for logic where there is none. The narrative is illogical in many aspects, and the dyad concept suffered from it. Same thing happened to found family, Rey's heroism, Ben's heroism, trio friendship, etc. None of it matters because the movie itself contradicts them everytime and doesn't offer any closure.

@Atenais
That line Rey says in the TROS film( I will finish what Luke started ) when she’s talking to leia about finishing Luke’s journey to Exegol . It’s near the beginning when they find out about Palpatine , Poe is talking to the resistance and Rey says she needs to talk to leia . The quote is in context to the journey but like this in the trailer it looks like something else .

Piper Maru wrote:I have to say that I honestly can't remember 90% of the plot of the movie. I know what happened on an intellectual level, but it's all so poorly written, edited and filmed that it's just a blurry mess to my brain. It's not a surprise to me that people simply don't care/don't remember.

And TLJ haters didn't like TROS, they're just acting out of spite. TROS ruined their favorite OT characters even more than TLJ did.

And about the dyad... no point in looking for logic where there is none. The narrative is illogical in many aspects, and the dyad concept suffered from it. Same thing happened to found family, Rey's heroism, Ben's heroism, trio friendship, etc. None of it matters because the movie itself contradicts them everytime and doesn't offer any closure.

@Piper Maru

yeah, all of this but especially the bolded. it's a such a bizarre failure of a movie. it wants to be the finale of not just ST but 9 movie saga yet feels so unfinished. nobody gets a proper closure but there's also no hook to make you want to see continuation with these characters. moreover, because the plot is so confusing and forgettable, one doesn't feel like spending time dissecting it because you can't be sure what you are dissecting. hard to remember stuff plus when you do you are confused if it means what you think it means (eg. what finn wanted to tell rey before dying).

I hate criticizing movies on "should have done this instead" basis but I think that TROS ending sequence should have been like GOT's "The Last of Starks". It doesn't matter whether people like character choices or not, they were given proper conclusions. I'd do that for TROS with the last scene being Ben waking up in WBW. That way, you have clusres and you have a major teaser for the future.



It's Ramin's music that makes this work despite well, being the infamous S8.

On Tumblr, someone said Ben's death 'broke the saga'.
That's exactly what happened, and in three ways.

He was the most memorable character. Not just with reylos, but he's popular with just about everyone but antis. Even people who hated the ST liked him.
He's very loved by real life abuse victims. They identify with him, and killing him off broke their hearts, especially as he was so swiftly replaced. Having Rey get over it so quickly, and Leia and Luke zero sadness, only made it worse - and them look worse.
DLF can shove their rip offs down our throats as much as they like - but the Skywalker/Solo family will ALWAYS be the heart and soul of the franchise. The Mandalorian is great, baby Yoda makes a cute cuddly toy but will they ever have the same love as the film characters? I wonder. Why oh why did DLF end the saga by killing them off? It was completely unnecessary. They wanted new characters, but they didn't have to kill off the last true Skywalker to promote them. They could easily have given Ben Solo his happy ending. Let him ride off into the binary sunsets with Rey..

Instead they give us a pointless, plotless movie full of irritating heroes pushing a black and white morality tale that doesn't belong in these times. Personally I don't think it ever did. And while not wanting to'Bible' bash, perhaps they should remember Jesus Christ himself quoted 'no man - or woman - is without sin.'
In short, nobody's perfect.
Except Mary Rey Sue Palpwalker. Who mysteriously is more deserving than a broken abused man she disfigures, breaks his heart by reaching for a weapon instead of just saying'no' ( just after he'd killed his Supreme Leader for her), likes shooting people, likes blowing up spaceships, and finally....
She also likes stabbing unarmed men in the gut.
Wow. What a saint.

I just don't see financial visdom in buying SW with intention to kill the most iconic family. It would be like buying Marvel to kill Avengers.

Reminds me of why I stopped buying X Men comics in the Noughties, their new chief Joe Quesada didn't like them so he ran the comics into the ground to promote the Avengers which were his favourites. Bit like Abrams and Terrio actually!

I've just read on reylovoid's Tumblr that they are bringing out a 'trio' comic.....but it's aimed at children.

Fans should understand that all books and CB that are getting released in near future were approved before TROS came out. They are not based on fandom reception. otherwise Poe's drug dealing adventures with Zorii book probably wouldn't happen. But since those materials (Kylo CB, BFG CB, Poe and Zorii YA book, etc) were already printed/written/etc they have to release them. What happens going forward is anyone's guess but reactions to TROS will have an effect.

I interact mostly with reylos on Tumblr, partly because I don't want to get into mudslinging with those that hated TLJ and loved TROS, partly because for a deeply saddened old fan this is a safe place to rant. But I'm genuinely curious how non reylos feel about what the future holds now all the Skywalkers are gone.

motherofpearl1 wrote:I interact mostly with reylos on Tumblr, partly because I don't want to get into mudslinging with those that hated TLJ and loved TROS, partly because for a deeply saddened old fan this is a safe place to rant. But I'm genuinely curious how non reylos feel about what the future holds now all the Skywalkers are gone.

@motherofpearl1

I'll give you an insight.

Even though I write here, I'm not a "Reylo shipper" per se. I liked their dynamic and this forum was the only place on the internet where you could go and discuss these characters in an open way without dudebros jumping at you with convoluted parentage theories/"but he's evil" discourse. TROS is a bad film, not just because of what they did to Kylo/Ben or Reylo. It's bad because it's illogical, it makes the entire journey (both in the ST and in the overall saga) pointless. A lot of my GA friends watched the movie and left the theater shrugging and saying "that's it?"

They don't give much thought to what it all means because, well, they have no attachment to the story. So "Rey Skywalker" means absolutely nothing to them. Same for the rest of their choices. It's all irrelevant, it doesn't matter even in the context of the movie. So they simply didn't care, didn't give much thought to it, and then resumed their lives.

Also, common reaction from my non-Reylo friends "the Rey/Kylo dynamic was the only thing that made sense in this trilogy". And don't fall for the dudebros saying "it came out of nowhere" because it didn't. It was obvious in TLJ but people wanted to pretend that movie didn't exist.

Piper Maru wrote:

motherofpearl1 wrote:I interact mostly with reylos on Tumblr, partly because I don't want to get into mudslinging with those that hated TLJ and loved TROS, partly because for a deeply saddened old fan this is a safe place to rant. But I'm genuinely curious how non reylos feel about what the future holds now all the Skywalkers are gone.

@motherofpearl1

I'll give you an insight.

Even though I write here, I'm not a "Reylo shipper" per se. I liked their dynamic and this forum was the only place on the internet where you could go and discuss these characters in an open way without dudebros jumping at you with convoluted parentage theories/"but he's evil" discourse. TROS is a bad film, not just because of what they did to Kylo/Ben or Reylo. It's bad because it's illogical, it makes the entire journey (both in the ST and in the overall saga) pointless. A lot of my GA friends watched the movie and left the theater shrugging and saying "that's it?"

They don't give much thought to what it all means because, well, they have no attachment to the story. So "Rey Skywalker" means absolutely nothing to them. Same for the rest of their choices. It's all irrelevant, it doesn't matter even in the context of the movie. So they simply didn't care, didn't give much thought to it, and then resumed their lives.

Also, common reaction from my non-Reylo friends "the Rey/Kylo dynamic was the only thing that made sense in this trilogy". And don't fall for the dudebros saying "it came out of nowhere" because it didn't. It was obvious in TLJ but people wanted to pretend that movie didn't exist.

Thanks Piper, it's refreshing to know that even none reylos and GA audience members aren't impressed either. I actually got interested in the ST because of Reylo, I originally didn't want to see TFA because of Han's fate, but I was pleasantly surprised, and became an immediate Reylo shipper thanks to the interrogation scene.

I remember way back the Beauty and the Beast imagery in that film, and how eager I was to see the relationship progress. But unfortunately it was thrown away with everything else good in it.

The messages were muddled.  They were trying to say your lineage doesn't have to define you, choose your own identity.  But then it went into the territory of your lineage doesn't matter at all full stop.  Well, to most people family/blood does matter.  It doesn't have to write your destiny in stone, but it's still important.  So when every single Skywalker is killed off and only a Palpatine is left standing, who arbitrarily takes the Skywalker name after the trilogy tells us that a name doesn't really matter.....somebody did not think this all the way through.

And I say this as someone who saw TROS 4 times and enjoyed it.  Nevertheless, it's flawed.

vaderito wrote:I just don't see financial visdom in buying SW with intention to kill the most iconic family. It would be like buying Marvel to kill Avengers.

@vaderito

Same, I don't get why do that. They had the opportunity for both Skywalker and Solo kids for years down the line and they just had one Solo kid and killed him off. And with reylo if they ended with Ben alive, even if their relationship was open ended, they could have come back to it years later and had movies with the offspring of their own iconic couple some day which basically comes in with built in interest. Rey Skywalker isn't blood related to Luke or Leia , she wasn't even an actual daughter figure because they shared a single nice scene with a bunch of antagonistic ones in TLJ and all she had with Leia are basically those weird TROS scenes where you can tell it's not natural and feels weird. And people like to see kids of their faves, it feels like a continuation of their story in a way the passing the superhero mantle type of storytelling with Rey Skywalker just doesn't. And even if they wanted to tell new stories besides the Skywalker saga they could just do that,explore other time periods other than the OT.

TROS is terrible on so many levels but when it comes to Reylo it plays like a really bizarre Titanic. He gives up his place (in life) so that she could live, then she takes his family name...except the twist is she does it to honor the Lannister twins.

I'm a fan of Leo DiCaprio, but the most powerful scene in Titanic belongs to Kate Winslet. Her grief and resolve to continue living for Jack was what made the whole thing so unforgettable.

Rey did not grieve for Ben. There wasn't even a scene where she wept, or told them he'd given his life for her. That's why so many of us honestly thought there was an alternative ending. And frankly the more I think about it, the more I suspect there was. DLF, Abrams and Terrio can deny it all they like, that final scene was so 'off' it was unbelievable.

Rey simply isn't allowed to suffer. That's all that is. They treated the character with kid gloves so that noone would be offended and that resulted in a boring protagonist that even actress's natural charm and commitment couldn't save.

Music editing in this scene is perfection:

Twenty two years ago and that scene still makes me cry.
Titanic's sinking was one of the worst tragedies of the 20th century.

Agreed on all accounts.

Piper Maru wrote:I have to say that I honestly can't remember 90% of the plot of the movie. I know what happened on an intellectual level, but it's all so poorly written, edited and filmed that it's just a blurry mess to my brain. It's not a surprise to me that people simply don't care/don't remember.

And TLJ haters didn't like TROS, they're just acting out of spite. TROS ruined their favorite OT characters even more than TLJ did.

And about the dyad... no point in looking for logic where there is none. The narrative is illogical in many aspects, and the dyad concept suffered from it. Same thing happened to found family, Rey's heroism, Ben's heroism, trio friendship, etc. None of it matters because the movie itself contradicts them everytime and doesn't offer any closure.

@Piper Maru

Same. I can't really remember the sequence of the movie. But I still remember that, while at the theater, I felt embarrassed, because the dialogue was terrible.

I think Kylo's character is great, but I was not really mad of the idea of his dying, I thought it could be highly possible. After watching the movie, I know that I wasn't really frustrated with his death, but with the movie in general. It was bad. A videogame plot and a cringe worthy dialogue.

That bad thing about TROS, being a bad movie aside, is that now it's clear they can retconn anything they want. So, how can I care about this fictional world if even the creators seems not to care? PT can be kinda boring, but at least it has a clear path.

Feels like that they really didn't have a plan, or, if they had, they became afraid of the public, which, most of the times, is terrible for the creative process.

motherofpearl1 wrote:Twenty two years ago and that scene still makes me cry.
Titanic's sinking was one of the worst tragedies of the 20th century.

@motherofpearl1

Such a powerful dramatic yet hopefully scene.

As far as I can tell, the only purpose of the dyad is so that Palpatine can restore himself so that Rey can face him off when he’s in full strength?

The big problem with Rey’s story IMO is that it’s been spinning in circles for the entire trilogy and broadly repeated itself with every film. Every movie starting with TFA ends like, “Rey learns to deal with her past/parents and moves on towards the future”. Except that, instead of actually moving on, every following movie drags up her past again and takes her back to her damn parents. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with making her parentage Rey’s main concern throughout the trilogy, but nothing about the way it progresses is organic.

They matured in TLJ, regressed in TROS.

Not just Rey, but Kylo, Poe and Finn.

vaderito wrote:Fans should understand that all books and CB that are getting released in near future were approved before TROS came out. They are not based on fandom reception. otherwise Poe's drug dealing adventures with Zorii book probably wouldn't happen. But since those materials (Kylo CB, BFG CB, Poe and Zorii YA book, etc) were already printed/written/etc they have to release them. What happens going forward is anyone's guess but reactions to TROS will have an effect.

@vaderito

Yup, I see people questioning why there's more trio content, but this was clearly decided upon, and probably started production, before TROS came out. The fact it's one of the kid's comics is interesting, perhaps to make it less depressing for the kiddos. The Poe/Zorii book is a summer release, since one does not commission, write, edit, print, and market a book in 7 months. So we're going to be living in a weird world of more TROS content no one asked for because they didn't realize how bad the backlash would be.

To @Piper Maru's point, I had to double check to make sure Pryde was dead, because I totally forgot if and how that happened. The trio kid's comic has them continuing the war against the FO, and both Hux and Pryde are gone, guess they'll have to make new characters, which comics often do, or just have a faceless enemy. Such a shame, they did some fun things with Hux in the EU. It reminds me of the EU stuff they did to finish the war after the OT, but that was used as a bridge to the ST. Here, it feels more like the concluding film didn't do its job properly, and now it's up to everyone else to clean up the mess.

Saracene wrote:As far as I can tell, the only purpose of the dyad is so that Palpatine can restore himself so that Rey can face him off when he’s in full strength?

@Saracene

That's what they did, but it's not how it works in a well-written story. When you add concepts like "dyad" (which has deep philosophical/sociological roots) and then parrots s*** like "not seen in generations", you create expectations about it. Your audience expects you to follow through with it. And in the end, it's just... bleeeergh. The super special dyad was just a barely-disguised plot device so Rey could have her Wonder Woman/Iron Man moment.

Yes, usually everything in narratives are plot devices. But a good storyteller integrates them naturally in the narrative. JJ and Terrio didn't. One of the biggest problems with TROS is that the audience can easily call out the film for its problems, because the ludic aspect is barely there. We *know* what they're trying to do, we know it's bs, we know it makes no sense, and yet they shove it down our throats. The trust between audience-storyteller is broken.

Having read God Knows how many oral histories and interviews, both about the films under Lucas' direction as well as the ST, the conclusions I've come to are:

1) More thought/effort was put into the front end of this project, re-launching the franchise/brand, than into the direction it was headed. Compare the amount of discussion around it from LFL in the months leading to TFA's release and discussion about telling "the next chapter" after RotJ versus what's happened the past 12 months. The RoKR comic book is a prime example of plot points/histories which were teased at but not explained b/c per LFL staff, it's a story for future content. The last movie of the Saga would appear to be that future moment, but instead you'll need to buy a comic book series or the Visual Dictionary to get "the full story," made up by the book writers, about who the KoR were and how Ben came to know them or what Lando had been up to since RotJ.

2) What we all saw and were excited/engaged by was the work done from 2012-2017 and then something (blowback against TLJ and the mishandling of Solo) meant things were dropped/changed. From the outside it's insane that there was a 5 year run in which various creatives managed to bring the franchise and brand back from the dead, win back old fans, win over new fans (most of whom are from growing demographics), and then it sort of imploded back to the point it started from, seen as nostalgia fodder and followed by a small niche fandom.

3) Trevorrow's elevation from being Brad Bird's "he reminds me of me" Sundance protege to getting the keys for IX handed over to him on a ridiculously thin resume back in 2015, even before TFA came out, meant that IX was never going to be the summation of all the ideas/themes which were poured into the new films by writers like Kasdan, Carrie, Arndt, and Rian, along with actually following through with Lucas' original idea of 9 chapters. Unfortunately.

californiagirl wrote:

vaderito wrote:Fans should understand that all books and CB that are getting released in near future were approved before TROS came out. They are not based on fandom reception. otherwise Poe's drug dealing adventures with Zorii book probably wouldn't happen. But since those materials (Kylo CB, BFG CB, Poe and Zorii YA book, etc) were already printed/written/etc they have to release them. What happens going forward is anyone's guess but reactions to TROS will have an effect.

@vaderito

Yup, I see people questioning why there's more trio content, but this was clearly decided upon, and probably started production, before TROS came out. The fact it's one of the kid's comics is interesting, perhaps to make it less depressing for the kiddos. The Poe/Zorii book is a summer release, since one does not commission, write, edit, print, and market a book in 7 months. So we're going to be living in a weird world of more TROS content no one asked for because they didn't realize how bad the backlash would be.

To @Piper Maru's point, I had to double check to make sure Pryde was dead, because I totally forgot if and how that happened. The trio kid's comic has them continuing the war against the FO, and both Hux and Pryde are gone, guess they'll have to make new characters, which comics often do, or just have a faceless enemy. Such a shame, they did some fun things with Hux in the EU. It reminds me of the EU stuff they did to finish the war after the OT, but that was used as a bridge to the ST. Here, it feels more like the concluding film didn't do its job properly, and now it's up to everyone else to clean up the mess.

@californiagirl

Did he die in the movie??? I don't remember much what happened to the FO TBH.

snufkin wrote:
3) Trevorrow's elevation from being Brad Bird's "he reminds me of me" Sundance protege to getting the keys for IX handed over to him on a ridiculously thin resume back in 2015, even before TFA came out, meant that IX was never going to be the summation of all the ideas/themes which were poured into the new films by writers like Kasdan, Carrie, Arndt, and Rian, along with actually following through with Lucas' original idea of 9 chapters. Unfortunately.

@snufkin

IX was doomed from that moment, in my humble opinion. No matter the themes and aspirations, the fact that they gave such an important film to............... that dude (I'm trying to be polite here) when he had zero experience in filmmaking and zero knowledge in mythopoesis/popular culture/literature, told us how they wanted to approach the ST. JJ coming back was our last hope, that MAYBE they were trying to salvage the whole thing. But nope. ST was always an exercise in larceny (lol) and a soft reboot of the OT for the eventual Marvelization of the brand.