Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Discussion Thread (SPOILERS!) (1 Viewer)

[Dave Upton]

Saw it for the second time yesterday. I noticed some things I missed the first time, and confirmed my suspicion of a John Williams cameo. It held up well for a second viewing, though I'm still frustrated that the Johnson/Abrams switch resulted in so much magic-box storytelling.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I'm still frustrated that the Johnson/Abrams switch resulted in so much magic-box storytelling.

This is my the crux of my whole with the film right here Abrams and Johnson are both filmmakers I like, but their styles and interests as storytellers are radically far apart, and they were clearly not designed to tell one story. Instead of feeling like a seamless transition, it feels like creative whiplash. Abrams being interested in different things than Johnson is interested in or vice versa is not necessarily a bad thing, but because this film is supposed to be a sequel to The Last Jedi, there should be a certain degree of consistency throughout. Instead, Abrams chose to either sideline, ignore or rewrite elements of The Last Jedi for his film, and that makes them feel incongruous when viewed next to each other.

 

[David Weicker]

Can someone please explain what this 'creative whiplash' is? What elements were 'sidelined, ignored, or rewritten' between Abrams and Johnson? Multiple posters have referred to this topic.

Apart from Kylo 'lying' to Rey about her parentage in Ep8 to get into her head, and then walking back the 'lie' in Ep9 when he learned the truth, I'm not sure what people are talking about.

I must have missed these when I was watching and enjoying all three parts.

 

[DaveF]

Can someone please explain what this 'creative whiplash' is? What elements were 'sidelined, ignored, or rewritten' between Abrams and Johnson? Multiple posters have referred to this topic.

Apart from Kylo 'lying' to Rey about her parentage in Ep8 to get into her head, and then walking back the 'lie' in Ep9 when he learned the truth, I'm not sure what people are talking about.

I must have missed these when I was watching and enjoying all three parts.

• Rey's parentage -- which is a BFD, because that's the mythic that is tossed out from TFA to TLJ, and then TLJ's mythic arc is tossed out by ROS.
  • Kylo misleading Rey or otherwise being wrong about her dynastic parentage is clearly a retcon to get ROS to fit with TLJ, and not the original intent of TLJ's story
• Rose being a significant character, having a relationship with Finn
• The approach in TLJ of taking a more mature, hard-edged approach to the human experience. The TLJ gave a broken Luke Skywalker. ROS gave a dead Chewbacca who was really alive one minute later, and a memory-reset C3PO who was restored to normal ten minutes later.

It's not necessary to say these are good or bad in either film's direction, to be able to observe that this Star Wars trilogy was approached without a story plan, and the story and mythic elements whiplash in different directions in each of the movies.

 

[dpippel]

• Rey's parentage -- which is a BFD, because that's the mythic that is tossed out from TFA to TLJ, and then TLJ's mythic arc is tossed out by ROS.
  • Kylo misleading Rey or otherwise being wrong about her dynastic parentage is clearly a retcon to get ROS to fit with TLJ, and not the original intent of TLJ's story.

Sorry, but this is just your opinion. As far as I'm concerned it's not a retcon at all. TLJ left the issue of Rey's parentage completely open. On purpose.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

A retcon is when we’re told something we’ve seen onscreen didn’t happen the way we saw it with our own eyes. A classic example is Spider-Man 3. In Spider-Man 1, we see one character kill Uncle Ben onscreen. In Spider-Man 3, we are shown a different character killing Uncle Ben and told that this is always what happened. That’s a retcon.

What we have in TLJ is something entirely different. One character tells something to another that turns out to be not the whole truth. But TLJ never shows us an objective truth that TROS then shows us a different way. TLJ merely offers one subjective answer in a moment which turns out to be a manipulation (or what a character genuinely believed in the moment), but it doesn’t ever show us that answer objectively.

Which means that TROS doesn’t retcon or contradict anything we know to be objective truth. It merely delivers a different objective truth than the intentional misstatement of one character in a prior film led us to believe.

 

[Tino]

Look if there’s any “retconning” going on it was in TLJ. TROS just put the the original TFA story back on its original track as JJ wanted.

 

[Tommy R]

The TLJ gave a broken Luke Skywalker.

And two years before that, TFA gave us a broken Luke Skywalker.

 

[DaveF]

A retcon is when we’re told something we’ve seen onscreen didn’t happen the way we saw it with our own eyes. A classic example is Spider-Man 3. In Spider-Man 1, we see one character kill Uncle Ben onscreen. In Spider-Man 3, we are shown a different character killing Uncle Ben and told that this is always what happened. That’s a retcon.

What we have in TLJ is something entirely different. One character tells something to another that turns out to be not the whole truth. But TLJ never shows us an objective truth that TROS then shows us a different way. TLJ merely offers one subjective answer in a moment which turns out to be a manipulation (or what a character genuinely believed in the moment), but it doesn’t ever show us that answer objectively.

Which means that TROS doesn’t retcon or contradict anything we know to be objective truth. It merely delivers a different objective truth than the intentional misstatement of one character in a prior film led us to believe.

I think that gives for too much benefit of the doubt to Disney and co. TFA clearly set up Rey as Someone. TLJ clearly was was taking away that idea, setting Rey to be No-one (and further communicating that Jedi were for Everyone and there was no need for Family Dynasty). ROS obviously is course correcting that direction with a little retroactive continuity that Kylo was actually misleading Rey and she really is Someone.

I think to say otherwise is looking for a cinematic "Aha!" and a "Ooh, What Clever Storytelling to Keep Us Surprised!" when it's more simply understood as sloppy and unplanned plotting. And this explanation seems to easily fit the general understanding of the movie's development (no pre-planned trilogy, rushed movie making to hit schedules and financial needs, JJ Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy not paying particular attention to the story Rian Johnson was crafting in TLJ, JJ Abrams notorious for "Mystery Box" storytelling with lots of setup and no long term plan for the payoff).

 

[Tommy R]

I don’t see Rian’s view as definitively saying Rey can not possibly be anyone, nor do I see J.J. contradicting that the force can not be with anyone who is nobody. Rian was just saying Rey should just live her life regardless of where she comes from. At least that’s how I look at it.

 

[Dave Upton]

I don’t see Rian’s view as definitively saying Rey can not possibly be anyone, nor do I see J.J. contradicting that the force can not be with anyone who is nobody. Rian was just saying Rey should just live her life regardless of where she comes from. At least that’s how I look at it.

I personally found TLJ to be a misstep and a clear departure from the tone and story JJ set up in TFA. This is Star Wars, a series that is ultimately space opera and not drama. I think Johnson tried to make TLJ into a meatier, more dramatic film, and that was not what most fans wanted, and thus we had a very jarring shift in tone from TFA to TLK and then TROS.

Speaking generally, I'm fine with directors and writers taking risks and writing flawed characters that have historically been bullet proof (Casino Royale vs Quantum of Solace anyone?), however I think Johnson just tried too hard to change things up in TLJ and it wasn't in keeping with the story JJ got to start. If anyone deserves blame for all this, it's Disney for rushing these films out and not being as concerned about continuity.

Some examples from setup in TLJ that I felt were completely ignored in TROS, clearly showing a lack of continuity/planning and creative agreement:

• The orphans who were clearly called out as force sensitive on Catonica (boy with a broom), yet we see nothing about them in TROS
• Finn's relationship with Rose, and Rose as a character - nearly absent in TROS
• The political dynamics of the rebellion leadership being strained - all is peachy in TROS other than some bickering between Poe, Rey and Finn

I'm not saying Johnson made a bad film, much as I disagree with his choices around Luke. That said, it's blatantly obvious that JJ had a clear idea of what he wanted to do in TFA, Johnson ignored that completely in TLJ and did his own thing, and JJ retconned/ignored the parts of TLJ he didn't agree with and returned to his own vision in TROS. This is not conscientious film making in a trilogy, it's clear-cut example of a rushed creative team and studio mismanagement.

 

[Tommy R]

I definitely agree that Disney and co. didn’t have enough of a clear plan from the outset as far as doing a trilogy is concerned. But the same could be said to a degree about Lucas with the OT. And IMO, the absence of certain things in TROS does not nullify things in TLJ. The orphans on Canto Bight were not necessarily being set up as characters of their own for future installments, but just demonstrating that the force is still out there in people. TROS doesn’t contradict this. I didn’t take Rose kissing Finn to be setting up a relationship. Yeah, she’s talking about love, but more of a deep seeded love-everything sort of thing, rather than a romance between two people. And I hardly found the political dynamics of the Resistance to be peachy in TROS, though I suppose on this point I’d have to see it again, as I’ve still only seen it once. I just sort of remember things still feeling strained.

So while I definitely agree that TROS has a different tone and deals with different themes, I see no true “it all goes against TLJ” sort of thing. They are just different chapters of the overall SW saga. The OT is all over the place with tone and direction, but I don’t see anything bad about that.

 

[Joe Wong]

Evidence of the rushed release schedule is that Ep VIII (what became TLJ) was initially supposed to be released in May 2017. It was only pushed back when Disney realised they needed more time.

 

[WillG]

I definitely agree that Disney and co. didn’t have enough of a clear plan from the outset as far as doing a trilogy is concerned. But the same could be said to a degree about Lucas with the OT.

Despite Lucas being a revisionist on the topic, no he did not have a full plan for the OT, at least not before 1977. A big difference is that the movie that became known as ANH was a simple story that told us everything we needed to know. Thus likely making it much easier to write a good sequel. They had things to build on, Luke’s Jedi training, empire’s pursuit of the rebellion, sexual tension between Han and Leia, plus a twist that was truly out of left field (because it wasn’t known to Lucas at the time of making ANH). But they were free to do it all any way they liked and they didn’t have to deal with anything they teased the audience with. Contrast this with JJ throwing out all these mystery boxes from the get go and then handing it off to someone else is asking for trouble because either JJ had things in mind but then just trusted another director to read his mind apparently, or he had no real ideas in mind and just told another director to figure it out (but in either case JJ felt course correction was needed with regards to Rey’s linage and Luke)

 

[Tommy R]

George DID have one mystery box he set up in Empire with Yoda mentioning “another”. From everything I read it seems that at the time he did not intend it to be Leia but a new character, but decided out of convenience that it would be Leia as Luke’s twin.

 

[WillG]

George DID have one mystery box he set up in Empire with Yoda mentioning “another”. From everything I read it seems that at the time he did not intend it to be Leia but a new character, but decided out of convenience that it would be Leia as Luke’s twin.

but even that mystery box would have been relatively easy to pay off because if what you say is true, they just create a new character.

 

[SamT]

I personally found TLJ to be a misstep and a clear departure from the tone and story JJ set up in TFA. This is Star Wars, a series that is ultimately space opera and not drama. I think Johnson tried to make TLJ into a meatier, more dramatic film, and that was not what most fans wanted, and thus we had a very jarring shift in tone from TFA to TLK and then TROS.

"The Empire Strikes Back" is a drama and a shift in tone. I personally think the problems with TLJ are much more complicated and you can't attribute it to one or two story elements. It's millions of little things and it's the whole movie.

For me personally, Johnson did not make a meatier, more dramatic movie, the opposite, he made a parody. He did not have fun with Star Wars, he made fun of Star Wars. He basically made Spaceballs 2. The Ironing shot? Really?!

I remember watching one of the deleted scenes and shaking my head in disbelief. It was a Stormtrooper recognizing Finn in Imperial uniform and making fun or talking to him. Really? That's what a simple soldier would do to his superior officer? etc...

 

[Tommy R]

The Ironing shot? Really?!

I believe that was a direct nod to Hardware Wars. I wasn’t familiar with it going into TLJ, but I found that hilarious, as I did a lot of the other jokes/gags. Lucas FILLED SW with such humor, sometimes good, sometimes bad. The exchange between Hux and Poe in the beginning of TLJ is really fun in the same way Han’s exchange with the Death Star person on the intercom was in the original SW “Were all fine, here, now, thank you...how are you?”

 

[Robert Crawford]

"The Empire Strikes Back" is a drama and a shift in tone. I personally think the problems with TLJ are much more complicated and you can't attribute it to one or two story elements. It's millions of little things and it's the whole movie.

For me personally, Johnson did not make a meatier, more dramatic movie, the opposite, he made a parody. He did not have fun with Star Wars, he made fun of Star Wars. He basically made Spaceballs 2. The Ironing shot? Really?!

I remember watching one of the deleted scenes and shaking my head in disbelief. It was a Stormtrooper recognizing Finn in Imperial uniform and making fun or talking to him. Really? That's what a simple soldier would do to his superior officer? etc...

I don't agree with that assertion!

 

[Edwin-S]

Any discontinuity in the last three films is entirely Rian Johnson's fault. End stop.