Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

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Rossell
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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by Rossell » Thu Dec 19, 2019 8:26 am

This is getting pummeled more than I would like :cry:

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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by arqueturus » Thu Dec 19, 2019 9:56 am

All the Stars Wars faithful that I know love it, one was even reduced to tears.

Myself, I'll not be bothering with the cinema - I was underwhelmed enough by The Force Awakens that I didn't bother with The Last Jedi at the flicks and I'm glad as that was a turgid shite.

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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by Wrathbone » Thu Dec 19, 2019 1:47 pm

There will be people who would hate it no matter what they did with it. As Churchill said, the definition of a fanatic is someone who won’t change their mind and won’t shut up about it, and sadly that describes a substantial portion of the supposed Star Wars fan base.

I’m watching in about an hour. I’m going in with an open mind, but I’ll be surprised if I don’t enjoy it. At the very least I don’t expect to come out of it as one of the swivel-eyed haters.

EDIT - Yep, loved it. An imperfect but thoroughly satisfying end to the saga. Some of you are going to loathe it. :lol:

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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by Achtung Englander » Fri Dec 20, 2019 2:12 pm

so....

who has seen it ?

I will wait till it hits shiver me timbers
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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by Hatredsheart » Fri Dec 20, 2019 2:55 pm

Achtung Englander wrote:
Fri Dec 20, 2019 2:12 pm
so....

who has seen it ?

I will wait till it hits shiver me timbers
Same here, I was going to see it in January when all the fuss died down but my old bones aren't up to 3hr+ in a cinema seat anymore.
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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by elgaucho » Fri Dec 20, 2019 7:06 pm

I don't really want to say anything and preset people's expectations.

Let's say I went in with low expectations and survived the experience.

I mean I go and watch films like these for the spectacle and the effects and the experience on the BIG screen - if the story is great that's just an added bonus. :P
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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by Raid » Sun Dec 22, 2019 12:35 am

Saw it, loved it, agree with Wrathbone that those who didn't like the previous two will loathe it.
Spoiler
Yeah, if you're going into this expecting a clever, well planned and thought out story, you're going to utterly hate it. I think my biggest issue with the sequel trilogy has been the lack of cohesion, and this is the one where it showed the most. The first twenty minutes of the film feel like an exposition dump of everything Abrams thought should have happened in the second film. Hell, they reintroduce Palpatine in the first paragraph of the opening crawl, it's not even treated as a reveal (which is presumably why they didn't worry about putting him in the trailer). Now I liked The Last Jedi a lot, but I think the opening of Rise could easily have served as the main plot for the second part (although I'd keep all of the stuff with Rey, Luke and Kylo without any alteration).

But, if you don't feel your heart swell when Lando arrives for the final battle, and *that* music plays, fuck, you're not much of a Star Wars fan. This series has always been a bit daft, let's face it, but if you want laser swords and TIE Fighters and the Millennium Falcon flying down narrow corridors, this really ought to work for you.

The absolute nerd in me appreciated the chorus of Jedi that speak to Rey in the final confrontation, notable not just for two Obi Wans, Mace Windu, Yoda, Qui Gon Jinn and Anakin Skywalker, but also the animated series characters Kannan Jarus, Ahsoka Tano, Aayla Secura and Luminara Unduli, although Ezra Bridger was conspicuously absent. Also I think that's the first yellow-bladed lightsaber to appear in the films. The Ghost was present during the final battle (and survived), though I was a little disappointed not to hear Hera Syndulla on the radio in the final battle.

But there is one thing that's completely unforgivable. They stuck Wedge-fuckin'-Antilles on the Falcon's gun turret? Really? The best pilot of the Rebellion? And they didn't stick him in an X-Wing? What the fuck Disney. Franchise ruined.

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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by Tichinde » Sun Dec 22, 2019 8:13 am

Saw it last night and having slept on it, that is the single worst thing to happen to the Star Wars franchise since Jarjar Bink's (And I enjoyed the last two well enough for what that's worth).
Horribly writing, mostly nonsensical and utterly shit.

Which is a shame, because there is a nugget of a superb Star Wars story in there, it's just strung together with 10p sausages. There are some great scenes and visuals but it's all ruined by Abrahms having an utter lack of capability to tell an original story.

Shame really.
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Wrathbone
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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by Wrathbone » Sun Dec 22, 2019 8:27 am

Some thoughts now I’ve had a couple of days to process it.
Spoiler
Objectively, it’s a mess. Right from the start there are huge questions raised which the film has no interest in answering. How is Palpatine back? Oh, who cares? Sith stuff! Clones! What was the deal with Snoke? Errrr... clones again maybe! Sure, why not. I didn’t fully accept the hate that Last Jedi got for Luke, but I would entirely understand the fury that will be piled on this.

That being said, I don’t think it actually matters to the film that much. The reasons for Palpatine’s return are exposition that wouldn’t really change anything in the story, and doubtless it will be covered in other media for those who demand to know. Snoke is more problematic - given that he was the major villain of the first two films of this trilogy, we needed something more than a tank of clones to explain what the point of him was. I can speculate that Palpy had to use him as a semi-legitimate pawn, or possibly a conduit for his own power, while he regained strength and built his secret fleet. All we needed was a minute to explain that, but we got nothing. A bad move, I feel.

Everything else I loved. It felt like Star Wars, it had a rip-roaring struggle between good and evil, it built upon the mythos and it brought the Skywalker saga to a fitting close. Again, I’ll understand those who hate what they did with Leia, but for me it was a suitable and respectful denouement given the circumstances which carried genuine narrative weight. I also loved the flashback to Luke training Leia, which - please god - is hopefully the end of the twats who go on about how Leia shouldn’t have been able to use the Force effectively.

I’m relieved that they didn’t kill off all the classic trilogy characters for the sake of it, even if they tried a cheap scare with Chewie. And finally we get the first worthwhile C-3PO performance since Return of the Jedi! It’s a shame that R2 was sidelined, but C-3PO was back to his old self. It was nice that they wheeled out Lando, even if he didn’t serve much of a purpose. I’m not sure I liked the fan-service medal for Chewie at the end, but I’ll allow it.
Yeah, it really is a mess in places, but it’s a big, wondrous Star Wars mess that works far better than it should do provided you can forgive its foibles and go with it. Ultimately it’s like the Dagobah cave: you’ll get out what you take with you. If you go in expecting it to be bad, you’ll see its many flaws and focus on them. But if you go in expecting joyful, powerful Star Wars rollicks, it will provide that by the bucketload.

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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by Raid » Sun Dec 22, 2019 11:26 am

Spoiler
The critic in me knows that this is an objectively poor film; it relies on exposition dumps, brings back fan-favourite characters for no reason other than nostalgia (and the fact that after 11 films, they've still not created a bad guy as good as Vader or Palpatine), creates new characters for the sole reason of giving an established one something to shout about, and creates macguffins that are immediately forgotten about once half the film has been wasted looking for them.

But some of the nonsensical stuff can so easily be explained away, to the point where it doesn't really matter. It's all just a framing device. I don't mean to be an

The Final Order fleet apparently consists of older-style Imperial I Star Destroyers that only appear in New Hope and earlier (they've been replaced by Imperial IIs by Empire), so chances are the Emperor simply stockpiled older Imperial ships rather than creating new ones, then stuck newly developed super lasers on them. General Pryde, Richard E Grant's character, was a former Imperial officer, so the fleet may have been Imperial Remnant forces (they did after all have a galaxy-spanning navy that largely just disappeared after the Death Star II was blown up).

Palpatine cloned himself in the (now Legends) books, so that's not unheard of; we can just say that he foresaw Vader's betrayal (isn't this even stated explicitly in either Empire or Return?) and made appropriate plans for his resurrection.

Of course, this level of nerdy explanation shouldn't be an excuse for bad filmmaking, I just think that these things aren't worth getting hung up on in a fantasy film. Palpatine's back, there's a new galaxy-wide threat to worry about, that's just the setting. The franchise has been doing stuff like this for years; oh there's a second Death Star now. Oh the force let's you shoot lightning out of your fingers now. Oh Yoda's actually an acrobat if he puts down his cane. Oh, Obi Wan's a ghost now. Oh, Luke just built himself a new lightsaber.

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Mantis
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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by Mantis » Sun Dec 22, 2019 2:15 pm

I for one would be disappointed that after 30 something years the series hasn't really advanced in any meaningful way whatsoever, in fact it has quite significantly declined in quality from the originals. Silly space opera campness aside, the original story stands the test of time because it tells a compelling tale with good characters. The troubles this trilogy has had has absolutely killed it in terms of storytelling, and that's the big issue for me alongside the mediocre characters and crazy development.

Though to be fair, even if Abrams had been in control of the entire trilogy I'm not convinced it would have been a great deal better. He's a total hack of a producer and writer. All of his writing seems to start with a good idea and then end up going nowhere, he just can't seem to polish his ideas. Force Awakens is a good example of it, that movie starts so well. It's a shame the new trilogy couldn't keep up the quality past the first hour/first movie.

I'm not part of the Star Wars torches and pitchfork mob that is so vocal online. TFA was enjoyable enough and felt special just for being the first major return to the franchise in so long, Rogue One was actually pretty decent. The less said about TLJ the better, there is so little redeeming about that movie.

I'll be going to see this after Christmas and just enjoying it for what it is. But that's the silly thing, it gets a free pass because it's Star Wars, if it were any other sci-fi movie or a new franchise then nobody would give it a second look.

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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by Achtung Englander » Sun Dec 22, 2019 2:36 pm

nicely put Mantis

I would like to know what Lucas originally planned for 7-9 but the problem is that History never ends. So the fact it is a saga about something - the rise and fall and rise of Skywalkers - should really have finished with ROTJ. I have not seen the TROS but I know a lot as I don't care about spoilers at this point and the main criticism of this new trilogy is that they are totally directionless and it feels like a open argument between 2 directors and a producer who has totally lost the plot.

It is a real shame as they could have done something really interesting with the original cast as older people in a universe that maybe has no time for them. The problem is that Star Wars is essentially a simple story of good v evil and when that evil was destroyed in ep. 6 - where do you go from there ? We all know ep 7 was a rehash of ep 4.

The producers should have taken a bold move and have the Republic fall into a civil war or maybe have 2 factions rise up and a cold war ensues with plots and mascinations (as we saw with the end of WWII). I don't know. All I know is that ep 7 - 9 is a disjointed mess.
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Wrathbone
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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by Wrathbone » Sun Dec 22, 2019 2:43 pm

Achtung Englander wrote:
Sun Dec 22, 2019 2:36 pm
We all know ep 7 was a rehash of ep 4.
It really isn’t. So many people say this, and I have to wonder if they’ve given it more than a moment’s thought. Aside from some superficial similarities they’re very different, and in some factors intentionally opposite.

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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by Medicine Man » Sun Dec 22, 2019 3:20 pm

Could it just be that this whole Star Wars thing was never that good to begin with?

You can't polish a turd and all that. :P

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Re: Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker - the last film in the saga

Post by Raid » Sun Dec 22, 2019 3:51 pm

Medicine Man wrote:
Sun Dec 22, 2019 3:20 pm
Could it just be that this whole Star Wars thing was never that good to begin with?
No.

The biggest hurdle that I think these new films have had is also what's probably made Disney the most money. The new trilogy has lived in the shadow of the originals, and how exactly do you get the audience invested in Rey, Finn and Poe when they're sharing so much screen time with the legendary Luke, Leia and Han, while flying around in the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs? Don't get me wrong, I loved every minute that the original heroes spent on screen, but this shouldn't have been their trilogy.

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