Official TROS Spoilers discussion

I found the article interesting. Personally, I blame JJ/LF the most for Finn's poor character arch in the sequel trilogy. But that is my opinion only. John stating how they didn't have hair people who knew how to work with African hair was shocking. It is obvious that LF/Disney has a long way to go and they need to really do some soul searching about how they treat actors/crew behind the scenes in movies.
It would also help if LF would address their toxic fans who harass their actors. The way John and Kelly were treated was unacceptable and they needed more support.

He’s right to be angry at DLF who had no idea what to do with Finn after he stopped being Rey’s companion in TFA, and cynically used the character in promotion to give themselves a pat on the back for diversity. But the problems with Finn’s character began in the first five minutes of TFA, and Finn’s importance was never going to be sustained in a story that didn’t really call for a second protagonist.

Saracene wrote:He’s right to be angry at DLF who had no idea what to do with Finn after he stopped being Rey’s companion in TFA, and cynically used the character in promotion to give themselves a pat on the back for diversity. But the problems with Finn’s character began in the first five minutes of TFA, and Finn’s importance was never going to be sustained in a story that didn’t really call for a second protagonist.

@Saracene

True, I've said from the beginning Finn's character was wasted from the beginning of TFA. Let's take our defecting stormtrooper and do absolutely nothing with it. JJ takes plenty of blame here.

The thing is most fans agree that Finn was wasted, at least from what I've seen, but somehow we are still supposed to stan the character??? DLF could have made a memorable and deep character that would make an impression, but instead I think went too 'safe' thus sabotaged any chances of Finn being so. It is overall just sad, and tbh the wrong people are being blamed.

I’d even say that while John Boyega was overall wasted, Finn’s character was just plain misconceived. Once you remove John’s engaging and charismatic performance in TFA, nothing about Finn makes sense from the ground up. There’s absolutely no reason why there couldn’t have been a character named Finn who befriended Rey etc., you do need other characters in a movie beside the lead. But to make Finn work you’d need to completely rewrite him and his role in the series.

In related news, this review compares the Mulan remake to TROS, namely, in making Mulan special because she was born with more chi life force (magic power-ish, usually male-dominated), and becoming something of a stoic role model with little internality. https://www.polygon.com/entertainment/2020/9/3/21419876/mulan-review-live-action-disney-plus
Two more mixed reviews: https://mashable.com/article/mulan-movie-review-disney-plus/
https://nerdist.com/article/mulan-review/

Needless to say, Reylo Twitter is losing it: https://twitter.com/black_tym/status/1301568608355733504
https://twitter.com/directedbyrian/status/1301563025107890176

Despite this, reviews are mostly positive. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mulan_2020
At least it seems more competent than TROS, but still, the pattern is honestly getting troubling.

If anyone here has seen Cursed, I've seen there is a similar 'ship' going between the characters of Nimue and the Weeping Monk. Some of these aren't reylos, but many are, and already they are getting flak for it.
I'm one of them, but as a Reylo I'm prepared. But....the heroine is nothing like Rey. She's flawed, she struggles with a dark power, does some pretty unpleasant things, and thankfully her origins are established early in the series.
In short, she's a relatable, interesting character who Rey could have and should have been.
Yes, Disney it can be done.
I honestly can't understand why they are doing this. These female protagonists are not good role models for girls. Rey is not relatable because she doesn't have to struggle for anything, wisely pointed out by @vaderito on another forum,
Unlike Yennefer in the Witcher, she doesn't have to go through blood, sweat and tears to gain her status in life. Unlike Nimue, she doesn't make mistakes, and pays the price. The closest we came to that kind of Rey was in TLJ, and even then she had no problems turning down Ben's offer to rule the galaxy with him. Many fanfics have explored Rey agreeing in return for the survival of the Resistance. How I wish they'd gone in that direction.

I thought it was just Rey, just TROS, that they had c***** up. But now, Mulan too. Disney, why can't our heroines be human, with flaws? Why can't they have a love interest?
Why can't they be someone we can identify with?

Piper Maru wrote:It's very simple: they didn't think that they were "finishing off" the Skywalker line by killing Ben off, because they thought Rey Skywalker would be "meaningful" and represent that "everyone can be a Skywalker" and how the "family is going to live forever because now it's a legacy, not a bloodline". I mean, it's an extremely dumb/tone deaf idea and it's amazing to me how they didn't realize this in +5 years.

@Piper Maru
-Bingo!!!
LF decision makers: Aha! ' Rey Skywalker!' - All the Skywalker nostalgia without the Skywalker baggage!

karamelreylo wrote:

Piper Maru wrote:It's very simple: they didn't think that they were "finishing off" the Skywalker line by killing Ben off, because they thought Rey Skywalker would be "meaningful" and represent that "everyone can be a Skywalker" and how the "family is going to live forever because now it's a legacy, not a bloodline". I mean, it's an extremely dumb/tone deaf idea and it's amazing to me how they didn't realize this in +5 years.

@Piper Maru

I've been lurking for a couple years now on this message board, and I thought it's everyone can be a Jedi, not everyone can be a Skywalker.

@karamelreylo
-Welcome karamelreylo! Glad you joined in and stopped lurking
If Rey can call herself Rey Skywalker, anyone can declare themselves a Skywalker and actually be a Skywalker (as my signature implies!).
Just my 2 cents…

Saracene wrote:If everyone can be a Skywalker, what -is- a “Skywalker”? Just some combination of generic positive personal qualities? And what about the dark side of being a blood Skywalker that in the end ruined Ben’s life and made him a target? It makes no sense to have a character in the story for whom being a Skywalker was a burden, and then treat being a Skywalker as a shining prize with no downsides for another character.

And it’s not true that everyone can be a Jedi, even. You’re either born with a magic blood that makes you force-sensitive, or you’re not, being a Jedi is not something that you can simply achieve through determination and hard work. Sure you can look at it as more of “a Jedi can be born anywhere”, but was this really a necessary corrective for a series where the previous protagonists started out as a humble farm boy and a slave? Humble beginnings was always a staple of SW movies.

@Saracene
-Another bingo from me for this comment! [though okay I’m a bit delayed!!!] Beautifully put and I heartily agree!

Being a Skywalker is a hard and depressing life. TLJ novelisation explained: [In a passage where Snoke was musing internally about Luke] :  “Like his father, Skywalker [Luke] had been a favored instrument of the will of the Cosmic Force. That made it essential to watch him."
[weird to think this turned out to be the internal musings of the Snuppet. So it really doesn’t make any sense at all!!!!!]
Being a favored instrument of the will of the cosmic force did the Skywalkers no favors!!!! The cosmic force comes across as a very cruel mistress by the end of TROS for me.
Had the cosmic force decided Ben Solo must live at the end of TROS and somehow granted a miracle by bringing him back (like the magic brought back the beast in Beauty and the Beast or whatever) all the pain and suffering the skywalkers had endured at the hands of Palpatine would have been worth it.

The Skywalkers got shafted, and so did the concept of the cosmic force in this story: The Heartless force!
The slaves are still enslaved, Anakin's dream of them having freedom never came to pass, and the enslaved Skywalker line ended up only finding freedom in their death. Dark stuff.  

And.. yes not just anyone can be a Jedi – they were force users.
Besides, the flaws of the Jedi order were never really resolved at least not that I could see.
It seemed in TLJ they were going for the whole – anybody can utilise the force or maybe have some force sensitivity, but not everyone could be a force user.
I was really interested in how this was all going to be resolved in TROS– the nature of the force and how it interacts with everyone in the galaxy.. but it just got skipped in TROS. Glossed over.
Why would anyone actually want to be a Jedi? This isn’t clear to me by the end of TROS. And… I think it probably should be if the Jedi are to continue being part of the story and the good guys moving forward?
All the Jedi were there for Rey at the end of TROS? Awh isn’t that fab. Meh. None of the Jedi helped Ben Solo. Anakin went on to be a force ghost but never thought of trying to reach Kylo/Ben?! Nope. I'm still salty!  

@californiagirl – thanks for sharing the Mulan stuff. Wow.
Soooo it’s not all just limited to Rey and TROS huh. They’ve really lost their sense of what makes a good, satisfying story!

- @Geralt_Riv I’m usually up for snark and clever insights on TROS.
Was enjoying this bit of wit, right up until he decided to share the KMT and DR comments. Just my own experience of it... but.. Sharing the KMT memes was plain nasty.... And the dig at DR to me was not okay.
This vidder pondered - how could DR have possibly gotten this lead role as she's so bad??? Then.. it cut to a still image of an empty couch for a silent beat.. Or maybe I should say: a casting couch.
He doesn't directly say it because better to imply when being sexist that to outright say it.  
I don’t care whether someone likes TROS or not, likes Rey or not, but it’s not okay to throw around personal insults about how DR got the role using sex. Nope. Not okay. At that I stopped watching.

Wishing to end on a more positive note.. Kasiopea continues to dish out the reylotastic goodness!  

Oh and lastly, not sure if this has been discussed here.. I'm finally getting to watch 'James Cameron's Story of Science Fiction' - I think it's a year or two old now.. You guys seen it? Lots of GL quotes.. and emphasis on hope and how Star Wars was made for 12 year olds...
I really really wish I could learn what GL thinks of TROS, but I don't think I'm going to!  

@deebee you have put into words exactly how I feel.
And what really adds insu!t to injury - . making Rey a Palpatine. Although I'll never forgive them for Ben Solo's fate, it might have been easier to stomach if:
:
a Rey was Rey Nobody
b She actually mourned Ben.
Luke wept at his father's death, had a funeral pyre for him,. and only started to look happy when he saw him as a FG. Rey didn't even shed a tear for the young man who died saving her, and was apparently the other have of her soul. Instead, it was as if he'd never existed. No mention of what he'd done, no FG. Not only a horrible treatment of the character but a disgraceful way to treat the actor, whose performance stole the entire trilogy and has since been twice Oscar nominated. What makes it worse, is Adam genuinely had affection for!y?o/Ben - I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have ruled out playing him again if they'd taken a different direction at the end.
And for Pete's sake JJ - what on earth was that creepy s*** eating grin Rey had on her face at the end - she looked like a fembot!

People are still marveling over the Mulan/TROS connection. Not a good look, Disney.

I knew they'd shot themselves in the foot big time. This confirms it.
Now, what's that old saying....
"Stand by the river long enough and you see the bodies of your enemies float by..."

Well this got confirmed a lot sooner than I thought. Turns out JJ was even more indecisive about Rey's parentage than we thought. But yeah, TROS didn't seem committed to a lineage and just kind of shoehorned because... yeah. This is from a new Daisy interview with Joh Gad.



My main question now is when she says "at first" if that means TFA or the beginning of TROS. I just feel bad for her, she and the audience and SW deserved so much better than this.

Actually wait, I do have more questions. Like why they did end going with Palpatine? As much as most people coming out of TFA thought Rey was a Skywalker, Solo (even if neither makes sense at all), or they didn't care, there was even less setup for Palpatine than there was for Kenobi. In a film with so many ANH parallels, I thought the Obi-Wan vision sequence was meant to parallel him mentoring Luke, both before and after he died. Did they go with Palpatine just for the Vader parallel? The people who were mad at TLJ didn't beg for this connection, way to misunderstand your audience. No wonder Pablo was pissed off and went into his locked off social media bubble, I would too.

I defended this trilogy saying that there would have to be a overall plan because they spend millions on these films. I was wrong.
If their plan was to have Kylo die then he should have been unrelated and she would be the legacy character in TFA.

Now, I don't blame Adam for not promoting that film.

To be fair, he didn't do much promotion for any of the films, and he never went to Celebration.

I always felt like Rey's lineage was the wrong question to ask, it seemed so irrelevant in TFA. Because it kind of was. Everyone was pointing to different theories because it wasn't pointing to any one of them. Which again begs the question of why did it matter at all? Which is ultimately where that went, until it didn't. I still don't get why they went with the decision they did.

She doesn't mention her being a Skywalker or Solo as a potential option at any point. Reylos strike again I guess?

Talk about ripping open old wounds... I thought this was dead and buried but I am glad for the honesty and feel partially vindicated ... but yeah.. Kenobi ( or some lineage) was the seeded plot in TFA ( probably from GL's original draft) and RJ decided to rip that away... that is why TLJ had such a backlash... RJ was tone deaf.. Kenobi was the right answer for a happy Reylo ending. Rey Palpatine is the over reaction from executives and JJ for a "shock twist" that would generate interest in TROS because failure ( a total gross of beneath 1 billion WW ) was not an option...

californiagirl wrote:To be fair, he didn't do much promotion for any of the films, and he never went to Celebration.

I always felt like Rey's lineage was the wrong question to ask, it seemed so irrelevant in TFA. Because it kind of was. Everyone was pointing to different theories because it wasn't pointing to any one of them. Which again begs the question of why did it matter at all? Which is ultimately where that went, until it didn't. I still don't get why they went with the decision they did.

She doesn't mention her being a Skywalker or Solo as a potential option at any point. Reylos strike again I guess?

@californiagirl

Yeah that's how I felt too and why I think Rian approached it the best way. Skywalker or Solo, as much as I'm glad they didn't go there, were the only ones that would actually have an impact on Rey's character cause if they are the parents then she can have a story with them. Kenobi or Palpatine imo are mostly cool names to attach to Rey for the sake of the audience but mean nothing to her because she had no idea about these people. And they're dead so no story there unless they pull something ridiculous like somehow Palpatine has returned and even that was empty and pointless when it comes to impact on Rey.

TFA absolutely intended to make people speculate about Rey’s parents, but that’s all the whole heritage thing was designed for, to make people engage with the ST. Nothing to do with Rey herself and her character development. It was completely meaningless in-story and that’s why any answer (including Rian’s) just wasn’t really going to work.

And are we really still going on about "Rian ruined JJ's Kenobi plans because he's bad" almost three years later? This is the most clear-cut demonstration yet that they were never committed to any particular lineage for Rey, it was all very flippant and not treated with much significance. There wasn't much for Rian to contradict to begin with, because I'll be blunt, most people weren't thinking of Kenobi and there wasn't enough set-up from the first 7 films for it to actually make sense. There wasn't really any parentage theory based on preexisting characters that would make sense going into TLJ, let alone after it.

I think Rian was focused more on what the future held in store for Rey, hence Kylo's' 'let the past die' quote, and reylo being the heart and soul of the film.

@californiagirl Well put! Completely agree! JJ backed Rian into a corner and not the other way round.

Here's a poll, accidentally put it on the wrong thread at first.

californiagirl wrote:Here's a poll, accidentally put it on the wrong thread at first.

@californiagirl

As was said in the other thread...

Lol at Palpatine being clearly the worst choice...i just can't.

californiagirl wrote:In related news, this review compares the Mulan remake to TROS, namely, in making Mulan special because she was born with more chi life force (magic power-ish, usually male-dominated), and becoming something of a stoic role model with little internality. https://www.polygon.com/entertainment/2020/9/3/21419876/mulan-review-live-action-disney-plus
Two more mixed reviews: https://mashable.com/article/mulan-movie-review-disney-plus/
https://nerdist.com/article/mulan-review/

Needless to say, Reylo Twitter is losing it: https://twitter.com/black_tym/status/1301568608355733504
https://twitter.com/directedbyrian/status/1301563025107890176

Despite this, reviews are mostly positive. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mulan_2020
At least it seems more competent than TROS, but still, the pattern is honestly getting troubling.

@californiagirl

I just watched it yesterday. Didn't like it. Flat movie.

I think Rey Palps in unpopular both because it was badly set up and just kind of a bad idea, but because it's ultimately what we got in the end. I'm thrilled at the tanking of both Rey Palpatine and Rey Skywalker.

The Dune trailer just dropped, my main worry is that people will view it as just another SW/Trek/Avatar/mainstream space opera. To my understanding, Dune is immensely weird, and beyond the first book becomes nihilistic and everyone has unhappy endings. Which is fine because Dune is not SW, I just wonder if expectations aren't quite on track with what it is.