palpatine being "revealed" in the crawl might be the dumbest decision of the entire movie and that's saying quite a bit
I was dying in my chair in that scene. Shit is so lazy.
The dead speak!
Palpatine is still alive somehow. He enlists Kylo Ren to try to help him find and kill (?) Rey. Rey is training with Leia as her master. The Resistance is rebuilding with Poe and Finn doing spy stuff. Palpatine launches a huge Sith fleet he has been building for years. They have 16 hours to find the fleet and destroy it. The fleet is on a planet called Exegol. They go on a MacGuffin hunt to find clues that will lead them to Exegol. In the process Kylo and Rey have a confrontation where she kills him (because Leia distracted Kylo by calling out to them with the Force and dying because of using all her energy doing so) and then resurrects him with the Force. He becomes good after seeing a vision of Han.
They track down the Sith fleet on Exegol and go there to destroy it but are massively outnumbered. But then Lando comes in with hella ships from all over the galaxy who help out. Palapatine is Rey's grandaddy and he wants her to strike him down so he can inhabit her body. But Rey deflects Palp's lightning back at him and kills him for good I guess? This saps all of Rey's power and she dies but then Kylo brings her back to life, dying for realz in the process.
The Sith fleet is destroyed, the galaxy is free, Rey returns to the Lars homestead on Tatooine and gives herself the name "Rey Skywalker."
Other stuff happens but it's not really important.
Hmm thank you both. And rest in pieces Chewie??Palpatine is still alive (vague reasoning involving cloning), and reveals himself to be the mastermind behind Snoke. Reveals to Kylo Ren that Rey is his grand daughter. After learning this, Rey is conflicted and scared of herself until Luke reveals that he and Leia knew, but she chose to train her anyway because she's good people. Kylo is persuaded by Han Solo's ghost to abandon the dark side. Leia dies. Palpatine has a big army of star destroyers, each with the power to destroy planets. Lando gathers an army of randoms to destroy them. Rey and Kylo fight Palpatine after she refuses to become the new emperor. Palps dies. Rey and Kylo kiss as Kylo dies. Other stuff happens. Chewie explodes but not really.
Nah, he's fine. He gets a medal at the end.
You can like and love TLJ, fine. But not acknowledging that this movie did nothing to move the plot forward as a mid-trilogy EP should, is straight up bad faith.
I would have loved if for instance, when Snoke dies, that they introduce the Emperor as the big Mastermind right off the bat. Showing him in the trailer was weak and ruined a potential big moment.
The event Fortnite had to promote the movie was basically Canon :v
The opening crawl references Palpatine sending out a transmission revealing himself to galaxy and swearing revenge (a pretty important event, I'd say -- the old dictator that's been dead for 40 years publically announcing his resurrection and current scheme). This is not something we see in the movie, but in fact something that happened in the Fortnite promotion last week, shortly after Geoff Keighley and JJ Abrams got out of the Millenium Falcon, asked people to floss, and then had terrible banter about JJ's tight pants.
It just doesn't make sense because it's clear several times he wants to say it in private when Poe is not there so it's not force sensitive stuff so it's love.Some people are arguing that he wanted to tell her he was force sensitive. I imagine the dialogue goes like this in their heads:
"OH MY GOD, WE'RE SINKING"
"REY! I NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING!"
"WHAT"
"I'M FORCE SENSITIVE, LIKE YOU! I CAN FEEL THE FORCE DIRECTING ME!"
"OMG, THAT'S SO COOL, I'M SO HAPPY FOR YURHGHGHSDGF *rey chokes as sand enters her mouth*"
Same. For all the talk about wanting JJ to have done the whole trilogy himself this movie makes clear he would not have been able to do anything but replicate the same kind of threats from the OT.I was under the false idea that TFA was only a fan service nostalgia movie full of mystery boxes because it was the first Star Wars in years, the first movie in a series and it needed to be safe to win back old audiences. This movie proves that if it weren't for The Last Jedi and if Abrams stayed on for all 3, this trilogy would have just been a lamer, more convoluted version of the originals with no real vision behind it except to remind people of the old movies.
I mean, could they not have tried to pay this off with a final scene between Rey and Finn with him training alongside her?It was that he could feel the Force. He tells Poe when he says, "I know what Rey is going through, and so does Leia."
He tries to tell Rey in Falcon but she goes off on "no one knowing her.."
I genuinely have no idea how you can think this, unless you think you literally can't tell a Star Wars story without a scary monster man pulling the strings who gets killed in the third movie. TLJ takes Snoke out of the picture to set up Kylo as the main villain of a third movie. Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, leading the First Order, having gained power but finding no satisfaction in it, haunted by what he did to his father, haunted by the ghost of Luke ("See you round, kid"), obsessed with Rey.
Rey with the sacred Jedi texts, training as a Jedi, knowing that she and Kylo are always going to be linked. General Poe is leading a Resistance newly invigorated by Luke's final stand. Lieutenant Finn is training his own squad with his Stormtrooper training or something. Resistance vs. First Order, Jedi Rey vs. Supreme Leader Kylo. That's what Episode IX needed to be. No popup mastermind villain at the eleventh hour, no ridiculous giant army hidden just off-screen, no Rey actually being a famous name; TLJ set up everything and it only needed to be brought home.
Rey, your parents weren't actually nobody, they were just pretending. No, actually, they were the children of the biggest somebody in the known galaxy!Kylo's lying ass, trying to manipulate Rey into joining him, turns out to have not have been telling the whole story, and somehow TLJ was "undone".
TLJ wasn't undone. There were many call backs to what Rian did in a positive way. "You have everything you need." Increased focus on the Rey/Ben dynamic, including the mind link, lightspeed chases as a nod to TLJ's tracking tech, focus on the Jedi texts, etc.
A lot of the same stuff people were accusing TLJ haters of are being slung back in reverse now.
Yeah, movie really should have just been about a resurgent Resistance with a rallying cry around the legend of Luke and his last stand on Crait. That no one answered the call before because the FO alone was already so frightening enough but because Lando and Chewie flew around in the Falcon after the Emperor reappeared out of nowhere threatening surrender or die with a thousand OP Star Destroyers felt bad and unearned.
A film just about that final conflict between the FO and Resistance would have been good. No super weapons, just rebuilding the fleet and gathering allies and facing off. Focus on the characters overcoming their final challenges. Poe coming to grips as a leader and balancing out risk vs reward, Finn really facing down the FO and his past with them and Rey/Leia coming to grips that Ben doesn't want to be turned and having to face him once and for all. A third party villain wasn't required. Some doomsday countdown clock wasn't needed. etc. etc.
The event Fortnite had to promote the movie was basically Canon :v
To quote Odeko
Why are male writers in hollywood so obsessed with the notion that a ~strong female character~ must be chaste, forever alone, and suffer immense personal loss, yet without any apparent signs of the lasting grief that would be expected? I'm ready for a woman to write a SW movie now thanks
Rey cheerily sliding down the sand like she somehow missed the hellish landscapes she struggled to survive in, back in her childish hairstyle and with the borrowed droid she started her journey with? This is the same person who used to dream of being taken away from an isolated desert. Who would dream of oceans and islands to comfort herself at night. Who was scared of becoming like the lonely old woman at Niima Outpost, still struggling just to continue existing (but not living.)
And yes, her costume was to make the Carrie scenes easier. No reason she couldn't have let her hair down and had an outfit change post-training. What that costume and hair change signified in TLJ was a coming of age. She already broke out of the cycle of life on Jakku and the moments when she experiences the sights and places she could previously only dream about are some of the rare instances she seems happy and peaceful.
Maz's fateful words to Rey in TFA:
SIKE she's now trapped in a perpetual young adulthood back to looking and acting like her abandoned 6 year old self, but she has a sweet new weapon and a couple dead people for company. I don't want to hear some bullshit about she was maybe only temporarily there, that just means they didn't even give her real closure because the binary sunset fanservice shot (that TLJ did better already) was deemed more important than the fate of this trilogy's hero. She was free from her personal hell on Jakku, having her end in the place that it was a parallel of is straight up character regression.
"Star Wars is a fairytale" - JJ Abrams
"TRoS has a hopeful ending" - also JJ Abrams
ok dude
The romance stuff here is basically as awkward as it can possibly be.It just doesn't make sense because it's clear several times he wants to say it in private when Poe is not there so it's not force sensitive stuff so it's love.
And it goes. Nowhere.
Poe is bi. It's canon, believe me.The romance stuff here is basically as awkward as it can possibly be.
Finn wants to confess to Rey, but doesn't.
Rose confessed to Finn, but is ignored.
Jannah seems to have a thing for Finn, but it doesn't go anywhere.
Rey kisses Kylo Ren, but he dies.
And Poe is into Zori and she seemingly is into him, but she rejects him at the end. (it is depressingly clear that she only exists to confirm Poe's heterosexuality)
When they revealed Leia's saber and it's only used to deflect lightning. Deflating.As badass as the Lightning Storm was, is anyone a little disappointed we didn't get some Palpatine saber theatrics? I imagine a swell of music as he calls up his lightsaber and get chills.
"It's treason, then."
When did the rey / kylo force bond start to allow for cross galactic object teleportation?
Because 'poetry' and nostalgia.Why are male writers in hollywood so obsessed with the notion that a ~strong female character~ must be chaste, forever alone, and suffer immense personal loss, yet without any apparent signs of the lasting grief that would be expected? I'm ready for a woman to write a SW movie now thanks
Rey cheerily sliding down the sand like she somehow missed the hellish landscapes she struggled to survive in, back in her childish hairstyle and with the borrowed droid she started her journey with? This is the same person who used to dream of being taken away from an isolated desert. Who would dream of oceans and islands to comfort herself at night. Who was scared of becoming like the lonely old woman at Niima Outpost, still struggling just to continue existing (but not living.)
And yes, her costume was to make the Carrie scenes easier. No reason she couldn't have let her hair down and had an outfit change post-training. What that costume and hair change signified in TLJ was a coming of age. She already broke out of the cycle of life on Jakku and the moments when she experiences the sights and places she could previously only dream about are some of the rare instances she seems happy and peaceful.
Maz's fateful words to Rey in TFA:
SIKE she's now trapped in a perpetual young adulthood back to looking and acting like her abandoned 6 year old self, but she has a sweet new weapon and a couple dead people for company. I don't want to hear some bullshit about she was maybe only temporarily there, that just means they didn't even give her real closure because the binary sunset fanservice shot (that TLJ did better already) was deemed more important than the fate of this trilogy's hero. She was free from her personal hell on Jakku, having her end in the place that it was a parallel of is straight up character regression.
"Star Wars is a fairytale" - JJ Abrams
"TRoS has a hopeful ending" - also JJ Abrams
ok dude
idk, I'm someone who totally bought into JJ's public comments about respecting Rian's vision and building on it with this movie, and liking the choices TLJ made even if they weren't the ones he would've made. But at the same time I just don't know how to square that with this movie. Revealing Rey as Palpatine's granddaughter especially is such a direct rebuke of TLJ's core message that you can't help but feel JJ either really didn't like Rian's story or didn't understand it. He wanted to have it both ways here but it doesn't really work imo. Rey comes from 'special' blood, but Luke tells her what matters is her spirit not her blood...which is fine, but that if her blood doesn't matter, why make a point of her being Palpatine's granddaughter at all?One thing I will say I don't really like is how people are framing JJ Abrams as writing it to spite Rian Johnson.
I try to keep the artist's personal life seperate from the art they're making in general, but this feels particularly meanspirited since, based on interviews, as far as we know JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson have ton of respect for one another and are amicable. Whether that's actually the case behind closed doors, who knows, but that's none of our business until it comes into the public light.
As far as we know, JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson just made the best movies they personally could have and they just had different creative visions and different creative drives. There's no reason to assume that JJ Abrams wrote any of TRoS out of spite. (even if that "A Jedi's weapon deserves more respect" really really really feels like it)
But that one old lady rebel is a lesbian cause they showed .5 seconds of her kissing another woman at the end! Equality achieved.The romance stuff here is basically as awkward as it can possibly be.
Finn wants to confess to Rey, but doesn't.
Rose confessed to Finn, but is ignored.
Jannah seems to have a thing for Finn, but it doesn't go anywhere.
Rey kisses Kylo Ren, but he dies.
And Poe is into Zori and she seemingly is into him, but she rejects him at the end. (it is depressingly clear that she only exists to confirm Poe's heterosexuality)
It's hard to know what they were even trying to do here.
God I wish I had a way to screen cap Oscar's face when he said that line. He looked so done lol
My jaw was on the floor, like I had story beats spoiled before going in and I still couldn't believe how they handled him.palpatine being "revealed" in the crawl might be the dumbest decision of the entire movie and that's saying quite a bit
The dead speak! The galaxy has heard a mysterious broadcast, a threat of REVENGE in the sinister voice of the late EMPEROR PALPATINE.
GENERAL LEIA ORGANA dispatches secret agents to gather intelligence, while REY, the last hope of the Jedi, trains for battle against the diabolical FIRST ORDER.
Meanwhile, Supreme Leader KYLO REN rages in search of the phantom Emperor, determined to destroy any threat to his power….
Man, I really didn't feel that way. It... felt more like... Batman vs. Superman?
It's cowardice they made him Force sensitive in the movie but no one acknowledges it, and it's never explored. They give the Jedi moments and lines (choosing the right ship, sensing Rey, giving sagely Force advice to Jannah) but never pay off on it.I mean, could they not have tried to pay this off with a final scene between Rey and Finn with him training alongside her?
I genuinely have no idea how you can think this, unless you think you literally can't tell a Star Wars story without a scary monster man pulling the strings who gets killed in the third movie. TLJ takes Snoke out of the picture to set up Kylo as the main villain of a third movie. Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, leading the First Order, having gained power but finding no satisfaction in it, haunted by what he did to his father, haunted by the ghost of Luke ("See you round, kid"), obsessed with Rey.
Rey with the sacred Jedi texts, training as a Jedi, knowing that she and Kylo are always going to be linked. General Poe is leading a Resistance newly invigorated by Luke's final stand. Lieutenant Finn is training his own squad with his Stormtrooper training or something. Resistance vs. First Order, Jedi Rey vs. Supreme Leader Kylo. That's what Episode IX needed to be. No popup mastermind villain at the eleventh hour, no ridiculous giant army hidden just off-screen, no Rey actually being a famous name; TLJ set up everything and it only needed to be brought home.
those two ladies kissed in the background for 1.5 seconds so Star Wars is gay confirmedThe romance stuff here is basically as awkward as it can possibly be.
Finn wants to confess to Rey, but doesn't.
Rose confessed to Finn, but is ignored.
Jannah seems to have a thing for Finn, but it doesn't go anywhere.
Rey kisses Kylo Ren, but he dies.
And Poe is into Zori and she seemingly is into him, but she rejects him at the end. (it is depressingly clear that she only exists to confirm Poe's heterosexuality)
It's hard to know what they were even trying to do here.
idk, I'm someone who totally bought into JJ's public comments about respecting Rian's vision and building on it with this movie, and liking the choices TLJ made even if they weren't the ones he would've made. But at the same time I just don't know how to square that with this movie. Revealing Rey as Palpatine's granddaughter especially is such a direct rebuke of TLJ's core message that you can't help but feel JJ either really didn't like Rian's story or didn't understand it. He wanted to have it both ways here but it doesn't really work imo. Rey comes from 'special' blood, but Luke tells her what matters is her spirit not her blood...which is fine, but that if her blood doesn't matter, why make a point of her being Palpatine's granddaughter at all?
The romance stuff here is basically as awkward as it can possibly be.
Finn wants to confess to Rey, but doesn't.
Rose confessed to Finn, but is ignored.
Jannah seems to have a thing for Finn, but it doesn't go anywhere.
Rey kisses Kylo Ren, but he dies.
And Poe is into Zori and she seemingly is into him, but she rejects him at the end. (it is depressingly clear that she only exists to confirm Poe's heterosexuality)
It's hard to know what they were even trying to do here.
Brother, Sheev fucked everyone.
when they were getting fucked up by flying boulders they seemed pretty real to meSo were the people chanting in the room with the sith throne real or were they just a reference to the "all the sith are in me" line? Are they all dead now?
The Spark thoughIt's really sad that a John Williams score has less memorable music than Rogue One's. I can't think of a single distinct track from any of the three films, it's all callbacks.
What's amazing about this is how the movie largely works without the need for Palpatine until the final showdown. Like they could have had that as a legit endgame twist and they unintentionally ruined it for no benefit.
I love how incredibly forced it felt. And I love how they very obviously telegraphed it right before it happened ("Leia is about to try and contact Ben, it will use all of her strength!"), because the audience is dumb as nails.The moment Leia Force Phone Call'd Kylo felt like the "Martha" moment of the movie
I mean they were gay like rose was in a relationship with Finn. Ya know one shot and then the movie just moves on and starwars will never reference it againthose two ladies kissed in the background for 1.5 seconds so Star Wars is gay confirmed
The romance stuff here is basically as awkward as it can possibly be.
Finn wants to confess to Rey, but doesn't.
Rose confessed to Finn, but is ignored.
Jannah seems to have a thing for Finn, but it doesn't go anywhere.
Rey kisses Kylo Ren, but he dies.
And Poe is into Zori and she seemingly is into him, but she rejects him at the end. (it is depressingly clear that she only exists to confirm Poe's heterosexuality)
It's hard to know what they were even trying to do here.
As badass as the Lightning Storm was, is anyone a little disappointed we didn't get some Palpatine saber theatrics? I imagine a swell of music as he calls up his lightsaber and get chills.
"It's treason, then."
In this futuristic timeline, the child could have just been a test tube baby.