Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - SPOILERS HERE

[Darth Geek]

I feel like that Palpatine discovering that two jedi who are also... I dunno from two families or one bad and one good or whatever could super heal him felt like a really dumb ass pull.  It doesn't make a lot of sense thematically or... in any capacity.

I was unclear about the Emperor's plan. He spends most of the movie telling Kylo to simply kill Rey. But then when she gets to him he tells her he wants her to kill him so he can possess her or something. And then minutes later when both of them are in front of him it seems like he changed his mind again and decided to drain drain their essence to heal himself.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I feel like that Palpatine discovering that two jedi who are also... I dunno from two families or one bad and one good or whatever could super heal him felt like a really dumb ass pull.  It doesn't make a lot of sense thematically or... in any capacity.

I was unclear about the Emperor's plan. He spends most of the movie telling Kylo to simply kill Rey. But then when she gets to him he tells her he wants her to kill him so he can possess her or something. And then minutes later when both of them are in front of him it seems like he changed his mind again and decided to drain drain their essence to heal himself.

I was thinking the same thing while watching, his plan was all over the place, but looking back it seems his plan at first was to have Kylo as emperor since he wasn't strong enough to rule but strong enough to control Kylo, and he sensed Ray as a threat so wanted her gone?  Then when Kylo turned back to the light side after mom force projects out a "hello" he gave up that plan and decided to turn Ray to the dark side and have her as his puppet emperor.  Then when the 2 of them where in front of him he felt the power of their bond he changed plans again deciding to take their power and be mega sith emperor.  At least to me that seems like what was going on, watching it a few more times or reading the novelization might clear it up, or not, hyper convoluted plot lines are a JJ thing after all.

[F-Zero]

I feel like that Palpatine discovering that two jedi who are also... I dunno from two families or one bad and one good or whatever could super heal him felt like a really dumb ass pull.  It doesn't make a lot of sense thematically or... in any capacity.

I was unclear about the Emperor's plan. He spends most of the movie telling Kylo to simply kill Rey. But then when she gets to him he tells her he wants her to kill him so he can possess her or something. And then minutes later when both of them are in front of him it seems like he changed his mind again and decided to drain drain their essence to heal himself.

I was thinking the same thing while watching, his plan was all over the place, but looking back it seems his plan at first was to have Kylo as emperor since he wasn't strong enough to rule but strong enough to control Kylo, and he sensed Ray as a threat so wanted her gone?  Then when Kylo turned back to the light side after mom force projects out a "hello" he gave up that plan and decided to turn Ray to the dark side and have her as his puppet emperor.  Then when the 2 of them where in front of him he felt the power of their bond he changed plans again deciding to take their power and be mega sith emperor.  At least to me that seems like what was going on, watching it a few more times or reading the novelization might clear it up, or not, hyper convoluted plot lines are a JJ thing after all.

Remember Palpatine was controlling everything all along.  He manipulated events to bond Rey and Kylo.  The strength of the union of their "dyad" healed him.  Then he sought to grab their unified power.  That was the plan all along.  What a trip if he was the one who facilitated their psychic link.  What a trip if he was the one who brought Han Solo to Kylo.  What a trip if everything we saw since Awakens was his plan all along?  And who knows, maybe Finn's "feeling" will somehow lead to his resurrection.  And heeeere we go again!

[Johnny Unusual]

Or...

Spoiler

Palpatine changing his motive 13 times throughout the film and sometimes in the same scene like

[kunedog]

C+

For once I'm thankful I followed the (accurate) leaks and had most of the plot spoiled (and my expectations tempered), because otherwise I couldn't have followed half of the film.  It's supposed to be the culmination of a trilogy, but you can feel its burden of acting as a trilogy onto itself, with all the story elements (except a handful of aimless protagonists) severed going in.  The wrong Skywalker twin is dead.  Because Snoke is dead, the first act has to retroactively introduce the new main villain of the trilogy, complete with overpowered army/fleet out of nowhere.  And the third act conjures an even larger rebel (or republic, who knows) army/fleet . . . the trilogy's worldbuilding has been trash.

I mean, if star destroyers are now . . . uh . . . "upgraded" to planet destroyers then wouldn't four or five still be a terrifying, existential threat?  Five would also be a lot more plausible than hundreds (where did the crews come from?), and the opposing rebel fleet could be suitably smaller too.

Chewy and C3PO die only to--wait for it--not die (I still hate, hate, hate this cliche).  Rose and Maz are there . . . because they are there.

A few of the most severe flaws (and offenses) of The Last Jedi are explicitly reversed or dismissed.  IMO this open rebuke of TLJ is a clear sign that Disney acknowledges it as devastatingly costly blunder, and has probably privately understood it as such for a while (and by "a while" I mean all the way back to TLJ's massive weekend-to-weekend box office dropoffs).  The marketing has downplayed TLJ and even the cast has been allowed speak ill of it.

The force link was the only part of TLJ that I liked, and I love how it's expanded here into affecting the corresponding environment and transporting small items.  KOTOR-style unique/rare force abilities would be a good way to have some variety in Star Wars without breaking the universe, but it also has to be done without evoking the X-Men too much.

No getting around it, Rise of Skywalker is a mess, ending the trilogy in a crash landing, and a hard one.  But it pulled up out of the nose dive of TLJ and it's possible that something might still be salvageable.  The opening weekend take is disappointing, even compared to projections, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it has a stronger second weekend than TLJ.

[kunedog]

Did anyone else feel claustrophobic, especially in the first act?  It felt like most shots had me too close to the actors, almost as if the picture was zoomed in too far and the outside edge was cropped out.  I know the editors had a herculean task on their hands with all the reshoots and changes, so maybe they were hiding some things that no longer fit in the new cut?

was lando trying to sleep with his daughter at the end there? that was a really odd exchange.

Seemed innocent to me.

Lando: So, where are you from?
Jana:  No idea.
Lando: Let's go find out then.

As I saw it, she told him she's an orphan (like Rey) so he suggested an adventure to discover her origins (like Rey).  And if she's his daughter, I missed that (unless it's BDW's real daughter or something, the way they threw Billie Lourd in).

Threepio has always been one of my low-key favorite characters, and I was thrilled that he finally had something to DO for the first time since the original trilogy. I loved him geeking out about that festival they stumbled on, and I loved the bit about him having the answer, but not being able to say it. (Side-note, couldn't he have just transcribed the untranslated Sith text? I wonder if that was his idea just before getting wiped.)

Before boxofficemojo's awful site redesign, you could access a page with a list of actors, sorted by box office total of their movies.  IIRC Anthony Daniels was by far the highest based on a single character, though Infinity War + Endgame moved enough MCU heavy hitters up to knock him out of the top ten.  I wonder how much he'll climb again from RoS.

[/spoiler]

[Variety of Cells]

I feel like that Palpatine discovering that two jedi who are also... I dunno from two families or one bad and one good or whatever could super heal him felt like a really dumb ass pull.  It doesn't make a lot of sense thematically or... in any capacity.

I was unclear about the Emperor's plan. He spends most of the movie telling Kylo to simply kill Rey. But then when she gets to him he tells her he wants her to kill him so he can possess her or something. And then minutes later when both of them are in front of him it seems like he changed his mind again and decided to drain drain their essence to heal himself.

I was thinking the same thing while watching, his plan was all over the place, but looking back it seems his plan at first was to have Kylo as emperor since he wasn't strong enough to rule but strong enough to control Kylo, and he sensed Ray as a threat so wanted her gone?  Then when Kylo turned back to the light side after mom force projects out a "hello" he gave up that plan and decided to turn Ray to the dark side and have her as his puppet emperor.  Then when the 2 of them where in front of him he felt the power of their bond he changed plans again deciding to take their power and be mega sith emperor.  At least to me that seems like what was going on, watching it a few more times or reading the novelization might clear it up, or not, hyper convoluted plot lines are a JJ thing after all.

I don't think you're going to find anything deeper.  All the character's in this movie changed their motivations, feelings, and plans at the drop of a hat, and expected the audience to just go along with it because it's a movie and you already know what's gong to happen next.  Good people help the good guys because they know they are good and will immediately sacrifice their lives for them.  The worst of which was with Poe and...

his love interest spice runner lady.  She starts off ready to kill Poe, gets her butt kicked by Rey which makes her like Rey for some unexplained reason, and then jumps to her offering to run away with Poe, and then immediately sacrificing her ticket to freedom and a peaceful life so that Poe can rescue some random person (ie wookie) she's never heard of.  It makes no sense if you think about it at all, but the movie doesn't give you any time to think about anything because shit now there's more storm troopers so move move move soldier!  We have to get to the next scene and the next planet now or we're toast!

[Variety of Cells]

So yeah, I didn't care for it.  It did absolutely nothing surprising or interesting.  And while I am hesitant to hop on band wagons, it did walk back some of the more interesting ideas that the previous movie had, but retained the previous movies ridiculous pacing.  And I just didn't find it fun for some reason.  Things would just happen, and they would have no weight to them. 

There were some things I liked.  I liked Kylo and Rey's bond.  It was more interesting in the previous film, but it was still cool here.  And I liked the planet that was having the celebration, the one with the Hitchhiker's Guide reference.  They had a second to breath there, and be in a new and interesting place with cool character design and puppets.  But of course, as this movie was want to do, just as I was getting into it more storm troopers come and now we have to move move move!  There's no time for world building, we have so much more plot to get through!

[Cyrusso]

You know, these days I think it's important to boil down exactly what I want in a great movie. I could go on and on forever in some films about how certain mitigating circumstances can either help or hurt a movie in my eyes, but what I really am looking for in a movie is 1) a good story, and 2) good characters. IMHO guys... TROS more than delivers! I mean... it's also got other things going on too, like character development, of Rey, Kylo Ren, and Finn. It's got some great pay offs that were set up in the earlier sequel films, and I frankly thought it was nice how they handled Rey's subplot of worrying that she might turn to the dark side, something we've never seen in a Star Wars film. That was great stuff right there. I think I can easily make a very strong case that TROS is a great Star Wars film.

[F-Zero]

So yeah, I didn't care for it.  It did absolutely nothing surprising or interesting.  And while I am hesitant to hop on band wagons, it did walk back some of the more interesting ideas that the previous movie had, but retained the previous movies ridiculous pacing.  And I just didn't find it fun for some reason.  Things would just happen, and they would have no weight to them. 

There were some things I liked.  I liked Kylo and Rey's bond.  It was more interesting in the previous film, but it was still cool here.  And I liked the planet that was having the celebration, the one with the Hitchhiker's Guide reference.  They had a second to breath there, and be in a new and interesting place with cool character design and puppets.  But of course, as this movie was want to do, just as I was getting into it more storm troopers come and now we have to move move move!  There's no time for world building, we have so much more plot to get through!

I'm sure at some point we'll get a fan supercut that cleans up the inconsistencies and creates a more coherent drama.  I'll wager they'll leave the last movie mostly intact and work backwards from there.

[Darth Geek]

The flashback to Leia and Luke training felt like it could make an interesting movie. It's a shame we didn't get that in the 90s instead of the waste of time of the prequels.

[Cyrusso]

I also love where Poe lights up his flashlight and we're like Sorry Poe... you're not a Jedi bro.
It was also nice to see Finn supporting Rey and trying to keep her from going to the dark side

[F-Zero]

Spoiler

Ah crap.  I don't like to tear down the movie.  I loved it.  However...I ran across this meme.



Anakin was the one prophesied to restore balance to the force.  Presumably he did so at the end of Return of the Jedi when he tossed the Emperor down the well.  Since the emperor survived, then the prophecy was not true, yes?  Or is there another interpretation?  I hope so.

[F-Zero]

Regarding the character Rose Tico barely appearing in the last movie, this:

"We wanted Rose to be the anchor at the rebel base who was with Leia. We thought we couldn't leave Leia at the base without any of the principals who we love, so Leia and Rose were working together ... As the process evolved, a few scenes we'd written with Rose and Leia turned out to not meet the standard of photorealism that we'd hoped for. Those scenes, unfortunately, fell out of the film."

https://io9.gizmodo.com/writer-chris-terrio-offers-an-unsatisfying-explanation-1840711040

So that explains that.

[stansimpson]

it was nice how they handled Rey's subplot of worrying that she might turn to the dark side, something we've never seen in a Star Wars film.

I think you're forgetting Luke's entire storyarc in ROTJ, right down to encountering a his own dark self in the cave culminating to his final decision: "Never. I'll never turn to the dark side. You've failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi... like my father before me."