Official TROS Spoilers discussion

It's yet another way of depicting Rey as 'too noble for someone like Ben Solo'.

If the situation was reversed, and the abuse victim female rather than male....
Would they consider her 'sullied'?

I'm actually finding their behaviour more and more disturbing. Star Wars was all about love.
No Reylo, no Finn/Rose, heck not even FinnPoe!!

I would love to ask the founders of#metoo if this is what their campaign is about, turning women into sterile robots who aren't allowed to get laid.

I want to know if anyone has seriously kissed their friends on the lips for a solid 6-10 seconds out of "gratitude." The people who claim the Reylo kiss wasn't romantic should give it a try and report back on their friends' reactions.

It's been over 3 months later and TROS still gives me a headache. This wishy-washy stance on Rey's feelings for Ben will be one of my biggest pet peeves in the ST. It's especially ridiculous since Ben and Rey smooched; Rey's feelings should be definitive because of that alone.

I don't like thinking of kisses as rewards either. A woman initiates a kiss, and it's described in almost clinical terms, rather than something done out of attraction and love. On the other hand, if Ben had kissed Rey first, I can only imagine the "Kylo forced himself on Rey!!!" discourse...

I guess Commander D'Acy was kissing that woman at the end out of gratitude.

Anyone who (somehow) interprets the kiss as representative of a non-romantic action/dynamic between Ben & Rey are big old morons, with stupid bias and agendas. I don't think the novelization of the film should be used to verify or redux anything - anyways the film trumps the book. Personally, I've never put much stock in film novelisations, not that I haven't read or enjoyed any - but my view was that if the film came first, the book won't change the film - at least for me. Another thing in regard to TROS, is that anything revealed in the novel that was not included or expanded onscreen, does nothing but make the film look more chaotic and badly written.

@motherofpearl1
People who don't like Reylo and make it about status quo - will always make stupid arguments - now that the novel provided them with badly worded fodder as ammunition, they will continue their alleged discourse and click bait

Acritiqua wrote:The gratitude kiss really bothers me. It's male-focused films in which the gratitude kiss exists. A woman's kiss is seen as a reward, and sometimes an obligation, as though if a man does something to help her she's obligated to pay him in sex. This of course leads to male rage in some stories when she doesn't want to give her body as a 'thank you.' If Rey kisses Ben just as a reward with no feelings for him, it feels very similar. What's worse, is in the TROS book this kiss-as-reward is from Ben's point of view. I don't like thinking of kisses or sex as rewards.

@Acritiqua

That's the same reason why it bothers me. Gratitude kiss exists a lot in literature as well, I read several stories where the girl kisses the guy just to show him some gratitude. It exists in movies too, Keira Knightley kissed the guy - in Love Actually - to show her gratitude, because she is married and happy with her husband.



Doesn't matter if the kiss is long or if looks romantic. Kisses on the mouth in general look romantic and passionate, but we have several examples in movies and literature where the kiss means gratitude.

I do think the kiss between Ben and Rey was romantic. But the fact that they used "gratitude" to describe it in the novel is really awful and let room to people to interpret it the way they want (as anything else in this damn movie).

motherofpearl1 wrote:I guess Commander D'Acy was kissing that woman at the end out of gratitude.

@motherofpearl1

you can't say that! that was the most groundbreaking moment in SW history! it's politically incorrect to linken it to Reylo Non-Romantic-Tongue-Kiss.

At least we're all laughing now instead of being depressed.

ha, ha silver lining!

The article seems like just a dumb clickbait piece, not actual confirmation of anything. I don't think there's any way to play that kiss as non-romantic. They full on make out for a solid 10 seconds.

The fact they cut out the clone part from TROS (yet still kept it in the book for some reason), makes me go back to the Rey Palpatine thing being an add-on very late in the game. Add it to the pile of suspicious behavior. Like they had a posessing Matt Smith storyline, and/or a clone-ish version, but it was changed to give a Rey lineage that mostly just didn't make sense, undermined her arc, and didn't even matter in the end, so even the people who wanted her to have a lineage weren't happy. Adding the clone part back in re-undermines her development and story again. This movie really didn't care about Rey herself. To be fair, it didn't care much for anyone else either.

At least Ian gave a great performance, and the kiss was very good. Non-romantic? lol.

There were a few gold nuggets in the gravel.

So to recap, LFL and Del Rey Books release early copies at major comics/anime convention. Fans buy the book & post screenshots of key scenes to Twitter, which go viral and get picked up by fandom clickbait sites. Clickbait site Tweets are then picked up on by people outside of SW fandom circles, including major film actors, journalists, and film critics who point out "if you have to read a book to pick up on a plot point (e.g. Sith Troopers on Exegol or 'the Emperor was actually a clone')," then you didn't do a very good job of making the movie. Or the # of people who have an actual right to a Blue Check, including the former film critic for the Village Voice, making fun of "gratitude kiss." Which again, turns into statements like "you guys didn't do a very good job of explaining to the audience what story you were telling" and also various dunks on "Huh that's really not what I was seeing up on screen." I mean, if the Academy Awards only included the kiss moment in its opening ceremony, it's likely not because it's an example of gratitude. While some of this was driven by the usual fans and click bait sites being their usual selves on social media, LFL really doesn't come off very well here. And the fact that people who are actual serious critics/journalists (e.g. not part of their immediate fandom or podcasters) picked up on this and are dunking/criticizing the movie and LFL, is not a good look.

LFL does/says/writes something that they know will cause explosive reaction in fandom and then can't believe that reaction is explosive. Every freakin time.

Today I had an eye appointment and on the way I asked my Dad (GA) what he thought of TROS in retrospect with a bit of time and he thought Rey and Ben were siblings. Disney LFL really missed the boat on how to handle their relationship in the end. Especially with making Rey a Palpatine as that's what caused the most confusion for him in thinking they were siblings. If GA don't understand then how are devotees supposed to understand to even try to explain?

It's also particularly confusing how things went down with Matt Smith as I remember he was a big name on Star Wars's UK site alongside Keri Russell and Naomi Ackie. Something did go down for sure. It's more and more obvious that they are making things in a committee. Only TLJ seems to have the most overarching vision of one person.

vaderito wrote:LFL does/says/writes something that they know will cause explosive reaction in fandom and then can't believe that reaction is explosive. Every freakin time.

Kissgate

So am really getting” friendship “ vibes from this ( not !)- all credit to @Riri ( found this on twitter just now ):


Yeah right they are just friends lol!

LOL GratitudeGate is catching fire among YT fanboys as well.

I believe all of us here agree that their kiss was romantic.

In the past Reylos used the novels to legitimate their theories ("you have compassion for her"). So, with a movie that never really made their relationship clear, it's very annoying to see the novel of the same movie using the expression "kiss of gratitude" to describe the kiss between the protagonists. Lets not forget that in the first half of the movie people only saw Rey antagonizing Kylo and that after his death she didn't really mourn him.

It's been three months and we still have to defend that their relationship was romantic. WTH! We shouldn't have to defend that, the movie should have made it clear from the beginning.

@vaderito Even Avatar PR team threw shade at it on Twitter

It goes back to the discussion here 4 years ago. If you hire somebody who's made his name playing a variety of romantic/pervy boyfriend roles, have the big reveal of his face/hair in that moment, and then everything RJ said about writing the character/his relationship with Rey, oh and AMPAS including their kiss in the opening # for the Oscars, it's romantic. Not being able to openly acknowledge/discuss it as such is a clusterfuck on behalf of both the studio and some of the louder members of the fandom.

Oh yes, I agree it's romantic. I simply don't like the gratitude angle and I could even see that angle in the movie. Personally, I think the problem started in TLJ. Rey's feelings and perceptions aren't clear enough in that movie. Then come TROS, it almost felt to me that they were afraid to delve deeper into Rey such that her perceptions and feelings are even more mysterious. The book seems to be going with this as well. It feels like they don't know who Rey is or how she feels and are too afraid to go there. Everything from the book, to Abrams saying it could be romantic or it could be like they are siblings, to the movie itself, live in Rey Limbo. (Limbo would be a perfect last name for the character.)

Piper Maru wrote:@vaderito Even Avatar PR team threw shade at it on Twitter

@Piper Maru

LINK PLEASE! LMAO!

Acritiqua wrote:Oh yes, I agree it's romantic. I simply don't like the gratitude angle and I could even see that angle in the movie. Personally, I think the problem started in TLJ. Rey's feelings and perceptions aren't clear enough in that movie. Then come TROS, it almost felt to me that they were afraid to delve deeper into Rey such that her perceptions and feelings are even more mysterious. The book seems to be going with this as well. It feels like they don't know who Rey is or how she feels and are too afraid to go there. Everything from the book, to Abrams saying it could be romantic or it could be like they are siblings, to the movie itself, live in Rey Limbo. (Limbo would be a perfect last name for the character.)

@Acritiqua

TLJ was just the second movie. Anyway, Rey wasn't passive there. She shipped herself to him, she stepped close to him in the elevator scene, she thigh-grabbed him, etc. Reylos community imploded after TLJ.

I don't understand why to talk about it is taboo.



The tweets were deleted, but I was online and saw them on my TL. So, when we complain about the "kiss of gratitude" we're not agreeing that the kiss wasn't romantic, we're annoyed because LF purposefully let people think it wasn't romantic.

vaderito wrote:

Piper Maru wrote:@vaderito Even Avatar PR team threw shade at it on Twitter

@Piper Maru

LINK PLEASE! LMAO!

@vaderito

It's on their official twitter. I don't have the link at hand, but they taught people to say "gratitude" in Na'vi lmfao.

vaderito wrote:

Piper Maru wrote:@vaderito Even Avatar PR team threw shade at it on Twitter

@Piper Maru

LINK PLEASE! LMAO!

@vaderito

Here: https://twitter.com/officialavatar/status/1234550198845595656