TRoS, The Sequel Trilogy & The Skywalker Saga

[Whill]

STAR
WARS

Episode IX
THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

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....





The Rise of Skywalker THOUGHTS AND REACTIONS Introduction

Disney's series of new Star Wars films began in December 2015 with The Force Awakens. I enjoyed it despite (and because of) the fact that it is a thinly disguised reprise of my favorite SW film, ANH. For the past four years, I defended the so-called "Sequel Trilogy" of films. I corrected inaccurate statements and called out baseless accusations. I tempered extremely negative bashing. I provided official and fan explanations to perceived plot holes. I urged fans to give it until Episode IX for final resolution. Despite being disappointed with The Last Jedi, I continued defending this "trilogy" anyway, and maintained as much optimism as I could for Episode IX. Well, the moment of truth has arrived: The Rise of Skywalker.

I've now seen the film four times. A lot of family members and friends (and a few Rancor Pit members) have been asking me for detailed perspectives on the film. Since this work is being shared externally to this site, I thought it would be less confusing to share it as a separate thread from the post-release thread.

Unfortunately, TRoS is horribly choppy. Film footage was edited daily during principle photography. It also seems that so much of the film was quickly edited out in November to reduce runtime. The Visual Dictionary for TRoS has a timeline which was referenced for dating things, and it was consulted to address a few confusing aspects of the film. cheshire once said, "My thought is that the film shouldn't require the books in order to make sense." It shouldn't, but it slightly helps.

Some of the good things in the film became less good on subsequent viewings. A few of the good things have negative aspects, but a few of the bad things have positive aspects. And some of the bad things are only minor nitpicks. Here is the outline of what lies ahead:

1. The Rise of Skywalker THOUGHTS AND REACTIONS Introduction (this post).
2. Things I enjoyed in THE RISE OF SKYWALKER
3. Issues with THE RISE OF SKYWALKER as a single film
4. The Rise of Skywalker and THE DISNEY FILM TRIO
5. The Rise of Skywalker and THE STAR WARS SAGA
6. The Rise of Skywalker, The Sequel Trilogy, and The Skywalker Saga CONCLUSIONS

[Whill]

Things I enjoyed in THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

I enjoyed the "Star Wars" title start to the film and the main title scoring into the opening crawl. On the first viewing of every Star Wars film, this always gives me goosebumps and brings a smile to my face. Sure this isn't unique to TRoS, but it is still something I enjoyed.

I like how the opening crawl has the words "phantom" and "revenge" associated with Palpatine, referencing his role in the film titles of TPM and RotS.

Overall, I think the character costuming, special effects, and sound production were well done in TRoS.

Mustafar and Tatooine are the first and last planets to appear in this film (albeit briefly). Cloud City/Bespin and the forest moon of Endor also very briefly appear. It's about time some classic-era planets appear in this "trilogy".

Exegol is a cool-looking setting. Sufficiently eerie for a Sith stronghold, dark with lightning flashes all over the place. (Not a logical setting, but a cool setting).

I kinda like that the appearance of the Sith "death star destroyers" is based on the Imperial-I class star destroyers (even though it was probably just a shortcut to save time/money by taking advantage of the Rogue One/Solo model). It's a refreshing change from 'we must make everything new' to classic Imperial.

I like that Chewbacca was playing Dejarik against Poe Dameron and Finn, who accused him of cheating. Let the Wookiee win.

I like the briefly appearing Sinta Glacier, a big ice asteroid mining colony floating in space, and the short sequence of TIEs chasing the Falcon inside it.

Even though he is only a bit character, I like Admiral Ackbar's son Aftab ("Junior") being there. His presence is bittersweet because he is really only there to acknowledge the void left by Admiral Ackbar's death in TLJ. (I wish Ackbar's son had been in the entire "sequel trilogy" from the beginning, but really my main issue is with them killing off Ackbar offscreen in TLJ.)

I thought the little simian alien with yoda-ears that repaired Kylo Ren's helmet was cool – Too bad we didn't get to see that guy without the contraption over his eyes.

I like the fact that the mission to Pasaana included all three of the "trilogy" main protagonists (Rey, Finn, and Poe) together and Chewie in the Falcon. In these trilogies, we don't get too many occasions that the mains are all in the action together, and this was the first time in this "trilogy".

I love that they took Threepio on the mission too. After being on the sidelines in this "trilogy", Threepio finally got to have an adventure, and one where he was instrumental to the plot. Threepio was the source of a lot of the film's humor. It was cool to see Threepio wearing a hooded cloak. I'm overall happy with Threepio's whole story in TRoS. Threepio heroically volunteering to lose his memory for the mission would have had more dramatic weight if his memory wasn't restored later in the film, but the thought of Threepio forgetting everything permanently is a sad one. I do love the idea of memory back-ups for droids, which is what I imagine Artoo did for Threepio after RotJ to restore his memories of the PT (except without a loss of subsequent memories – perhaps a second memory drive was installed in him to access both sets of memories).

I like that Lando Calrissian was finally in the "sequel trilogy". It was a nice touch that he had a yellow shirt as a little throwback to his yellow shirt in Solo. I like that it was Lando who said, "I have a bad feeling about this." I was also amused by Lando saying, "Give Leia my love." You old smoothie.

There was a very brief shot of a big koala-based steed/pack animal on Pasaana. I thought it was amusing.

I thought the desert chase scene with speeders and jet troopers on Pasaana was an exciting and fun action scene. I am not a fan of First Order stormtrooper helmet designs, but I like that they generally brought jet troopers into action on film. (The Sith troopers also have a jet trooper variant in the final battle.)

The giant snake was kinda cool.

I like that Rey has Force healing and the postcognition power. Force characters in my game tend to have these powers.

Rey's jump-up-and-destroy-Kylo-Ren's-TIE move was pretty cool (but of course most of it was already scene in a trailer).

I liked John William's cameo on Kijimi.

On my first viewing I liked the character design of Zorii Bliss, except for the back of the helmet sticking out like that.

"Hello. I Babu Frik." I love the little old muppet droidsmith. I don't know what language he speaks most of the time, but he's cool. "Droid rememory go blank. Blank-blank."

Rey saying, "I care" was a nice little throwback to Luke Skywalker in ANH.

I liked the TIEs towing the Falcon through space.

"Can she do that to us?"

The action scenes of shooting troopers on Kylo Ren's star destroyer were videogamish but still pretty cool.

I like the Orbaks (equinoid riding creatures). Real Earth horses are awesome creatures, and Orbaks are even cooler.

I like the fact that Death Star II wreckage on Kef Bir (the ocean moon of Endor) is a setting in this film, including the Emperor's throne room. Williams even reprised some of the music from the Throne Room in RotJ. It was a cool setting inside, and outside with the waves crashing.

At the end of Ben Solo's "talk" with Han Solo, Ben says, "Dad…" and Han says, "I know." Nice throwback to Han and Princess Leia in the CT.

Chewie breaking down after learning of Leia's death had the feels.

I like that Ghost Luke told Rey that a Jedi’s weapon deserves more respect. Nice zing at TLJ having Luke toss the saber over his shoulder.

The "ground" mission on the surface of a star destroyer in atmosphere was a cool idea (even if it didn't make sense that they couldn't attack it from the air). Some snippets of the air battle were cool.

I like the Sith cult chanted something like "Rahtahmah," and later we hear something like "Korah". These of course are based on Sanskrit words John Williams originally used in scoring the Sith in TPM.

The arrival of Lando's cavalry has the feels (despite the lack of logic), and Luke's musical theme (the main Star Wars theme) is used fittingly. I liked seeing Lando flying the Falcon with Chewie as co-pilot for the first time since the end of TESB.

I liked Palpatine saying "the return of the Sith," which made me think of "Revenge of the Jedi."

Rey being brought back to life has the feels.

The Resistance reunion/celebration has the feels.

It was nice to see a cameo of Wicket (played by Warrick Davis) and Wicket's son (played by Warrick' son Harrison).

"The Emperor's Theme" is back! John Williams is never bad, and I am thankful he scored the nine Star Wars films that he did (and composed the main theme of Solo). I bought the Original SoundTrack of TRoS the day after first seeing the film. I've listened to the OST and the online FYC release a lot since then. But like TLJ, the film score of TRoS seems mostly uninspired to me. Unlike the films, I can only really rank Star Wars scores into two tiers. Episodes I-VII are top. The scores for Solo, RO, and Episodes VIII-IX are second tier. I can't help but notice that my lower appreciation for Williams last two scores does correspond to my two least favorite films that he scored, so as much as I try to view the scores separately from my appreciation of the films, maybe I can't totally do that. Oh well, it is what it is. And it was a bit of a surprise that "TIE Fighter Attack" was not used in this film after being used in the previous two episodes, notably for the most exciting part of the Battle of Crait. But I guess with all the of "The Emperor's Theme" this time that was the big retuning classic motif.
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[Whill]

Issues with THE RISE OF SKYWALKER as a single film

The Rise of Destroyers. Per The Visual Dictionary, the Sith Eternal Fleet had hundreds of 2.4 km long death star destroyers on Exegol. The destroyers busting the ice and rising from a frozen sea is a cinematically epic visual, but I still couldn't help but think of Raise the Titanic. And it seemed that Palpatine was raising them with the Force?? Unlimited power!! And why would hundreds of 2.4 km long capital ships with superweapons ever be underwater in the first place? Were they constructed there by a race of evil octopuses? (I'm sure there was a cut scene where the death star destroyers jumped sharks when coming out of the ocean.) In the film, the Sith fleet climbs to "climate altitude." What's that?

Klaud? During the escape from Sinta Glacier, the Falcon is crewed by a mechanic named Klaud, a big silly-looking slug-like alien with no limbs that is told to repair something. It is shown looking at a part that is sparking. How does it repair anything with no arms? Does it use telekinesis? After his brief appearances, Klaud disappears from the film with no explanation.

Lightspeed skipping is a shark jump. What exactly is lightspeed skipping? Is it going to random locations? If lightspeed skipping is almost suicidal, why do the TIE fighters follow the Falcon through hyperspace?

Abracadabra. Another shark jump was the necklace teleporting from Rey to Ren through their remote Force bond (almost instantly after she was given the necklace). And isn't it amazing that almost immediately a First Order science specialist identifies the necklace's planet of origin so Kylo Ren knows where Rey is? The science specialist apparently has no questions about the "science" of the magic interstellar rabbit in the hat trick! I consider the translocating lightsaber in the final battle of the film to be just a second instance of this same shark jump.

Treadspeeders. Are treadspeeders really necessary in a galaxy with speeders and speeder bikes? The only real purpose of them being treadspeeders was so Finn could take one out with a rope. The "launch" function for the jet troopers is just silly.

Sit down, Threepio! It is silly that Threepio remained standing on the speeder throughout the desert chase. They have shown the character sitting down in other films, such as in Padme's starship and Luke's landspeeder. Granted, they may not have shown his lower body in those occasions because the actor's suit may not functionally sit down, but they could have made a sitting costume or CGed the lower body.

Sinking Fields. Isn't it funny how the desert speeder chase ends, with both speeders being separately blasted in such a way that the back ends flip up and throw the passengers forward into "the sinking fields" so they go down into that cave and find Ochi's body and the dagger? Remember that "the sinking fields" is also a location in on Jakku where the TIE Fighter which Poe and Finn had stolen sank, and was also mentioned by Rey in dialogue? Abrams must feel it's a common feature of desert planets.

14 years in the desert. Ochi's ship was just sitting out in the desert for years, left as it was out in the open, unmolested? It hadn't been scavenged and stripped of anything of value. Do the people of Pasaana fear high technology? Is the world a utopia with so much resources that scavenging does not exist? It just seems odd that Ochi's ship is in perfect condition except for dust after all this time, still fueled, with all of its contents, left as it was when Ochi left it. And when Ochi hadn't returned, wouldn't Palpatine have sent someone out to look for the ship? Wouldn't Palpatine not want just anyone to find the Sith dagger that could lead to the secret Sith planet?

Sith language. Threepio says he was programmed to not translate Sith, but did you notice that he actually did translate the entire inscription except for the planet name they needed? If he had been programmed to not translate Sith, he shouldn't have told them anything about what it says, but the plot as-is would have been impossible because they wouldn't know there was a planet that a wayfinder existed on. The plot required them to know everything in the translation except the planet name for the whole plot point to work. (In effect, what the restriction must have really been is that he could translate everything expect proper names.)

Chewie and Finn. Rey stays outside of Ochi's ship when she senses something coming. When the rest of the gang are in Ochi's ship getting it ready for flight, Poe tells Finn he needs Finn's help. Finn tells Chewie to go outside and get Rey. What the what? The sensible choice to help Poe would be the 235 year-old copilot/technician Chewie. Finn could have been the one with the dagger. Chewie could have then been the one to see Finn get captured by the Knights of Ren/First Order, and so on with the Chewie/Finn switch until the gang got back together on Kylo's star destroyer. The stormtrooper deserter being captured by the First Order is a missed opportunity for characterization, and it would have given Finn more of a character arc than he had in the film. And it all would have started with something that made more sense than Poe choosing Finn to help him over Chewie. And who is Finn to be ordering Chewie around like that?

Rey, Chewie and Kylo. Then again, Chewie's capture is otherwise problematic anyway. On Pasaana, Finn saw that there were two FO transports, but he didn't see that the one which took off was not the one Chewie was on? After he yelled, "They got Chewie!" to Rey and she started to Force pull on the transport, Finn could have yelled, "No, not that one!" If Chewie had already taken off in the first transport, wouldn't Rey, Finn, and Poe have seen, heard, or sensed that ship leave? And if Chewie was on the second transport and hadn't taken off yet, wouldn't Rey have sensed that he was still nearby? On Kijimi, she sensed Chewie up on Kylo's star destroyer when she was still on the surface. Shouldn't she have likewise felt Chewie's presence near Pasaana and known he wasn't dead? And when Rey was out in the desert of Pasaana, how could she sense Kylo Ren when he was flying towards her from far away, but she couldn't sense Kylo sneaking up on her in the Death Star? So on Pasaana Rey could sense Kylo Ren far away but not sense Chewie nearby, while on Kijimi she could sense Chewie far away, and on the Death Star she could not sense Kylo nearby. The Force works in mysterious (and inconsistent) ways…

The Force unleashed! Rey and Kylo Ren doing the Force tug of war with the transport (with full thrusters blasting) was just ridiculous. This isn't a little lightsaber telekinesis like in the previous two films. And Rey's epic accidental Force lightning destruction of the transport is over-the-top absurd.

One more thing about the Chewie fake-out. The heroes thinking Rey had accidentally killed Chewie is an emotional scene, but it is dramatically stunted because the audience finds out almost immediately that Chewie isn't dead.

D-O. The new droid D-O had been owned by a Sith loyalist who was serving Palpatine. Leia and Rey remind everyone to never underestimate a droid, but no one asks Ochi's droid D-O if it has any info on Exegol before they reset C-3PO? And while I like the personality of the little droid (voiced by Abrams), I don't like the appearance. The droid just looks stupid. I wouldn't be surprised if Abrams built the actual model used in the film himself. "Boss, just give me the napkin drawing and I'll be happy to take it to the department that builds droids…"

The First Order Captain's Medallion is a silly plot device. A medallion that gets you through any FO blockade and clearance to land in any FO star destroyer hanger, including the Supreme Leader's star destroyer?!?! And by the way, the entire Colonies region of the galaxy is blockaded? All hyperlanes into the Colonies? And how did Zorii and Babu get off Kijimi without the Captain's Medallion?

How do you say "X marks the spot" in Sith? How did Rey just happen to be standing on the exact spot for the Death Star ruins to match the dagger from her view? And what if any of the wreckage had shifted in the past couple decades? It would no longer match the dagger.

Is there a 'Rey destroys Ren's fighter' John Williams motif? Rey destroys Kylo Ren's TIE fighter twice. Rey destroys it on Pasaana, then later Rey steals it on Kef Bir and destroys it on Ahch-To. Sure, he could have had a back-up, but it would have been so easy to put that in the movie. At their next encounter after Pasaana, Rey could have gotten snarky and said to Ren, "How's your ship?" to which he could have replied, "I have more." That would flow with her later using his second ship to leave the Death Star wreckage.

Find the way. Why didn't Ochi just take Rey's parents back to Exegol for Force interrogation instead of just killing them? Speaking of which, Ochi apparently could leave Exegol without a wayfinder, but still needed one to get back. Instead of Palpatine just giving him a wayfinder, he gave him a Sith dagger that would lead him to getting a wayfinder. So Ochi needed the dagger to find the wayfinder which he needed to get back to a place he had already been and left without wayfinder.

This is the way? Since Kylo Ren's second fighter had Vader's wayfinder for Rey to use travel to Exegol, that means Kylo must have either taken it out of the wreckage of his first fighter, or he had removed it after first using it and later put it in his second fighter. Either way, it suggests that he needed it to get back to Exegol. Kylo destroyed Palpatine's wayfinder in the Death Star throne room. But after Rey uses Kylo's second ship with Vader's wayfinder to go to Exegol, Kylo Ben returns to Exegol without a wayfinder. Ochi had also already been to Exegol and needed a wayfinder to get back, so how come Kylo Ren thought he needed it but ended up not needing it to get back?

Exegol. The concept of Exegol as a hidden, unreachable place becomes unbelievable when we see how many people have reached it. Lando said there were only two wayfinders ever made. If the only way to reach Exegol was by using a wayfinder, how did resurrected-Palpatine get there without one in the first place, since his wayfinder was still in the Death Star wreckage? And how did General Pryde get to Exegol without a wayfinder in this movie? What is the Sith planet's support structure? Does Palpatine just "conjure" death star destroyers and their crew with Sith magic? The death star destroyers supposedly have a crew of almost 30,000 each, and there are hundreds of death star destroyers in the Sith Eternal Fleet? Are all the resources including people power needed to construct and crew the Sith Eternal Fleet in this single star system? Was Lando just wrong about the number of wayfinders?

Speak no evil. After Ben returns from the Dark Side, he has no speaking lines the rest of the movie (except for saying, "Ow" once). Why? Strange choice.

Creature transport? Jannah and her unit were stranded on Kef Bir, apparently with communications reception only (not transmission), so how did all the Orbaks get to the Resistance? There certainly wasn't room on the Falcon for all of them.

The Resistance definitely acquired a leaked TRoS screenplay. The Resistance reacted to Kijimi being destroyed, and immediately had a leap of logic that all the ships in the Sith fleet must likewise have the same super-weapon. They do, but how would they know they that? There is nothing in the film to support them jumping to that conclusion at that time. Thanks for explaining the plot to us.

A pilot who can fly anything from A to Z. Before the battle, Snap is shown boarding an A-Wing, but in the battle he goes down flying an X-Wing. Maybe he's still alive in a Y-wing!

BB-8 can roll faster than Orbaks gallop!

This deal is getting better all the time. Lando and Chewie fly the Falcon to the Core Worlds to round up assistance, and a couple hours later they bring a hodge-podge allied fleet (consisting of 16,000 ships per ILM) to a hidden planet in the Unknown Reasons, through all the chunky nebulae and spatial anomalies, and they all arrive at the battle simultaneously. Yeah, riiight.

So, who kills first? You kill me? I kill you? It's just very hard to understand you with all the...apparatus. Palpatine first wants Kylo Ren to kill his granddaughter Rey. Then Rey finds out that Palpatine actually wanted her alive. Then Rey finds out that Palpatine's Sith agent had murdered her parents. Rey goes to the Sith planet fueled by feelings of revenge, wanting to kill Palpatine. Then Palpatine tells Rey that he wants her to kill him so he can possess her body. Rey understandably becomes hesitant. It made no sense for Palpatine to tell Rey he wanted her to kill him, because that's what stops her from doing exactly what he wants her to do.

Sense motive? So Palpatine can immediately sense from across the galaxy that Kylo Ben has turned to the light side, but when Rey was right in front of Palpatine, he couldn't tell that Rey wasn't really going along with his plan, or that Ben was nearby?

Poof. The rushed editing of the film is really bad in the final confrontation between Sith and Jedi. They weren't always there, but a shot or two establish that Palpatine's Sith chamber has Imperial royal guards (from RotJ and RotS) standing in the background. A scene cuts to Palpatine's chamber and shows Rey fighting the royal guards. I thought, 'Cool!' but then they were quickly gone, never to be seen again. What? Then later Ben suddenly appears at Rey's side when he last hadn't even been in the room. Huh?

Presto chango. Palpatine's clothes magically change after his body regenerates.

Power! Unlimited power of the Fonz! Even I can't limit my own power! The selective-ionization-of-enemy-fleet-in-sky-from-the-surface extension of the Sith lightning power is Fonzie jumping over Godzilla, a really stupid thing in a movie chock full of stupid things. When Palpatine attacks Rey with lightning, she uses Luke's and Leia's lightsabers to defect the lighting back to Palpatine's face. Couldn't Palpatine just stop shooting the lightning at her to stop it from being sent back to him? Palpatine explodes, and the explosion takes out the entire body of Sith Eternal cult members in the stands! How convenient.

Rey IS Palpatine. Or did Palpatine want Rey to do that? According to what he had said earlier in this same encounter, if she killed Palpatine that would mean that he would possess her body. Palpatine had told Kylo Ren that all the voices he had ever heard had really been him, so did Palpatine cause Rey to hear all the Jedi voices to trick her into killing him? Was Abrams trying to give us a happy ending where good defeats evil and it is just a major plot hole the resolution should have made Palpatine win? Or is Abrams just using the Jedi mind trick on the public to think it was happy ending for now but insidiously setting up future sequels where Palpatine's spirit lives on in his granddaughter?

Galen Erso design features? I actually like the general concept that death star destroyers' super laser weapons are also their weakness. However several other contrived handwaves are inserted to make the plot work. (1) The ships need a centralized navigational signal to go straight up into space and without it they are stuck in atmo, (2) In Exegol's atmosphere, their shields don't work at all, and (3) They made the gun's weakness too weak so that even a single fighter can take out a death star destroyer by attacking the unshielded superlaser weapon. So hundreds of Sith Eternal super-weapon ships just start getting destroyed left and right once Rey stands up to Palpatine to stop his Sith lightning fleet attack.

No Age of Ultron. In TRoS, the air battle is going on directly over the heads of Palpatine's chamber. Dozens of damaged capital ships fall from the sky, but somehow there are no cataclysmic impacts that kill Ben and Rey. With the Ocean Moon of Endor, Jakku, and now Exegol, it is clear that Abrams harbors some kind of weird fetish for giant soft-landed space wreckage.

The Hermit. What's up with Lando? Why was Lando on Pasaana in the first place, living as a disguised hermit? Did he just decide to retire there after his mission with Luke? Why would Lando say his flying days are over? What could have happened that would make him not want or able to pilot spaceships anymore? Was he there because of a price on his head and he had to lay low? And is Lando just being nice when he offers to help Jannah find out where she is from? Or is he hitting on her? So the Visual Dictionary mentions that Lando had started a family and an infant daughter was abducted. [I found a Star Wars leak website that had speculation supposedly based on leaked info that addressed these questions about Lando. Supposedly he had a 2 year-old daughter that was abducted by the First Order while Lando was with Luke on the mission to Pasaana to search for Ochi. (But there's no info on Lando having a wife or the child's mother.) Apparently the child knew the planet name that Lando had gone to, so Lando has lived on the planet ever since as a sort of reverse-Rey in TFA, in case the child is ever able to come back to look for him. That would explain the comment about him no longer flying. So the idea is that Jannah may possibly be Lando's daughter, but I think that the timeline is off because Jannah looked to be older than 16 years old. Maybe this was Abrams' idea but abandoned it when it didn't work out.] I guess it could still work out that Lando just has a lot of sympathy for kids abducted by the FO and wants to help them find their families. Whatever the case, I feel we got a raw deal with their being no explanation for Lando being a hermit on Pasaana and almost no info on what he's been doing for the last 31 years since RotJ.

What did Finn want to tell Rey? The film never revealed. [In an interview, Abrams said that Finn wanted to tell Rey that he realized he was Force-sensitive.]

Rey's new lightsaber. I thought Rey's yellow lightsaber looked kinda evil for some reason. But even weirder was the old woman that walked through the Lars Homestead and asked Leia who she was immediately after Rey deactivated her new lightsaber. So the lady had no issue with the big yellow-bladed lightsaber, but was just dying to know Rey's last name?
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[Whill]

Episode VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the sinister
FIRST ORDER has risen from
the ashes of the Empire
and will not rest until
Skywalker, the last Jedi,
has been destroyed.

With the support of the
REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa
leads a brave RESISTANCE.
She is desperate to find her
brother Luke and gain his
help in restoring peace
and justice to the galaxy…


Episode VIII
THE LAST JEDI

The FIRST ORDER reigns.
Having decimated the peaceful
Republic, Supreme Leader Snoke
now deploys his merciless
legions to seize military
control of the galaxy.

Only General Leia Organa's
band of RESISTANCE fighters
stand against the rising
tyranny, certain that Jedi
Master Luke Skywalker will
return and restore a spark of
hope to the fight…





The Rise of Skywalker and THE DISNEY FILM TRIO

"I knew it was leading somewhere." In light of TRoS, Rey's dark cave vision in TLJ is utterly meaningless. Some of her TFA vision is meaningless too. Now it makes no sense that Anakin's lightsaber would have "called out" to Rey in the first place.

Who is the Last Jedi? The opening crawl of TFA clearly identifies Luke Skywalker as "the last Jedi." We learn in the film that Kylo Ben had destroyed Luke's Jedi Order leaving only Luke who went into hiding. In TFA, the location of Luke Skywalker was the MacGuffin that both sides of the film's conflict were in a race to find. The First Order wanted to kill the last Jedi to make sure he could not train any more Jedi, to fully extinguish the Jedi from the galaxy. The next film takes this concept one step further by being titled The Last Jedi. In TLJ, Luke is again identified as "the last Jedi". Near the end of the film, Luke tells Kylo Ren, "I will not be the last Jedi." I. Will. He did not say, "I am not the last Jedi" or "I am not the only Jedi." He used the first person pronoun with the future tense. He is obviously referring to Rey, who everyone expected would become a Jedi in the next film. [Rian Johnson said that when Leia flew through space, that represented pure Force instinct and no Jedi training.] In TRoS, Rey is seen going through Jedi training and Leia is her master. If Leia is training Rey to be a Jedi, that means Leia is a Jedi. If Leia is a Jedi, that means that Luke never was the last Jedi! Why wasn't the First Order so concerned with finding Leia? Snoke and Kylo would know Leia is a Jedi. The First Order can't destroy all hope of the Jedi returning to the galaxy without also destroying her. Leia being a Jedi (and Luke's ghost having her previously unknown lightsaber) is Abrams flat-out contradicting both prior films in this "trilogy". It is worth noting here that in an early story treatment for the sequel trilogy written by Lucas to sweeten the deal for Disney, Luke was going to be newly training Leia in the present of the story and Luke wouldn't have died until Episode IX. But they were under no obligation to adhere to Lucas' story and didn't, leading them to introduce a retcon in Episode IX that Leia had been trained as a Jedi in the first year after RotJ just so she could train Rey in TRoS. Ever since 1983 when my kid D&D group homebrewed a Star Wars RPG set after RotJ, I have imagined Leia being Luke's first Jedi student as Abrams did in TRoS. The problem is, the plots of the previous two films were completely based on the premise that Leia was not a Jedi.

The Last Skywalker. In the third act of TRoS, Palpatine tells Ben Solo that he will be "the last Skywalker." Ben does end up dying and Rey declares herself a "Skywalker" at the end of the film, thus making Ben not the last Skywalker. This is a redirection of the emphasis from the last Jedi to the last Skywalker because the plot of the prior films required Leia to not be a Jedi. And the last Skywalker conveniently puts a period on the newly designated "Skywalker Saga" that this film supposedly completes.

They were nobody. In TLJ Kylo said, "Rey, I saw who your parents are… Do you want to know the truth about your parents? Or have you always known, and you've just hidden it away? You know the truth. Say it. Say it." Rey said, "They were nobody." Kylo said, "They were filthy junk traders who sold you off for drinking money. They're dead in a paupers' grave in the Jakku desert." When Kylo said, "Or have you always known?" Rey begins to cry. Rey is the one to say "They were nobody." If you watch this scene closely, it and the rest of the movie around it show that Johnson is playing it as Kylo and Rey were telling the truth. Without Skywalker reincarnation, I don't like this version of Rey's background but Johnson is saying Rey had merely been repressing the truth in TFA when she kept saying she had to get back to Jakku. In TFA, Maz Kanata tells Rey that her parents aren't coming back and Rey cries as if she is finally accepting the truth, not as if this was new shocking info out of the blue. The TLJ revelation isn't really contradictory to TFA. In TRoS, Rey's prior background is junked. The only reference to this in TRoS is when Kylo tells her she is Palpatine's granddaughter stating, "I never lied to you. Your parents were no one. They chose to be, to keep you safe." Abrams isn't even trying to fully address the contradiction. He is only addressing the big fan hot button about Rey being no one. It doesn't make any sense that Ochi would have taken Rey's parents' bodies back to Jakku to bury them in a paupers' grave there (and still not find Rey there). This goes way beyond "true from a certain point of view."

Who are you? What makes you special? In TLJ, Luke repeatedly asked Rey who she was. From Hamill's performance, you can tell TLJ is playing Luke as not really knowing her identity. This emphasizes that Rey is not anyone special that Luke would sense. TRoS indicates that Luke knew she was a Palpatine. If Luke and Leia knew Rey was Palpatine's granddaughter all along, why wouldn't they ever tell her? Luke could've sat her down and said, "Look, you're a Palpatine. I wanted to tell you because I also had an evil ancestor and I found out in the worst possible way, so I don't want that to happen to you." Instead they just keep her in the dark, thereby endangering the entire galaxy by how she might react to the news from somewhere else. Let the past repeat itself? Saying Luke and Leia knew Rey was a Palpatine is really just a way to try to further the illusion that it was planned all along, to help sell this change in premise to fans. Ain't buyin' it.

All wings report in. In TLJ it seemed that Luke had used part of a wing of his X-Wing as the door to his hut. In TRoS it seems to have been restored to the ship, and underwater to boot. More importantly, if Luke's underwater X-Wing was flyable, then Luke didn't need to Force project himself across the galaxy and sacrifice himself in TLJ. He could have flown to Crait in person!

Let the past be repaired. Ren's helmet and the Skywalker lightsaber being repaired in TRoS makes their breaking in TLJ meaningless in the story. (Kylo Ren's helmet has always looked stupid, and the helmet being repaired looks even worse. He should have just let the past die.)

We have every Skywalker lightsaber part we need. The destruction or repair of Anakin's lightsaber isn't even referenced in TRoS except for maybe a little brown leather-looking strap that is supposedly holding the two halves together. The other explosion damage it was shown to have when Rey held it at the end of TLJ is mysteriously gone like it never happened. It really couldn't even be the same lightsaber – It just looks the same, and maybe has the same crystal and some other parts. What would have made more sense for TRoS is if Rey discovered that one of the ancient Jedi text books had a compartment in it with Luke's green lightsaber that he had just stashed it away in. Maybe Rey would need some components of Anakin's destroyed lightsaber to get Luke's lightsaber in working order again. The blue lightsaber was just a hand-me-down to Luke but the green lightsaber was Luke's actual lightsaber. Rey makes her own (yellow) lightsaber at the end anyway.

Lightspeed tracking? When the Falcon did the lightspeed skipping, it was tracked through hyperspace by tie fighters multiple times. What the what? In the last film the 'lightspeed tracker' was a dedicated system on a single gigantic capital ship. Did the First Order spend the past year miniaturizing the tech and updating all its ships with it, down to every little TIE fighter?!

"Hi. I'm Poe." "Rey." "I know." The Rey and Poe argument in TRoS is not really poorly scripted or performed, but it still seems a bit off to me considering that these two characters only just met at the end of the last film.

Kiss from a Rose. Rose kissing Finn in TLJ has no purpose now that Rose's role has been greatly reduced and there is no hint of a relationship in TRoS. Why did Rose allow Finn to potentially sacrifice himself on a suicide mission in TRoS after risking her own life to save him in TLJ? Rose was an important character in TLJ but hardly had any screen time in TRoS. Abrams created the new role of the Resistance historian guy for a personal friend of his, and he had more lines in the film than Rose. Let the past die?

The last remnants of The Last Jedi have been swept away. DJ was an important character in TLJ but he wasn't even indirectly referenced at all in TRoS. And what ever happened to Broom Kid?! It would have been kinda funny if DJ and Broom Kid were shown to be flying in the final battle (in the ship DJ and BB-8 had stolen in TLJ).

"The Scavenger." It's dumb that the bad guys all keep referring to Rey as "The Scavenger." Even her grandfather did. She is a Jedi and she hasn't been a scavenger for a while, so come on.

"At the height of their power they allowed Darth Sidious to rise, create the Empire, and wipe them out." Luke had suspected that the Sith planet of Exegol existed, but he and Lando had just given up the search seven year before his Jedi order was destroyed and Luke went into hiding. Shouldn't Luke have given the Republic or Resistance a heads-up that the Sith might rise again? It's all out of the blue in the film, with no hint of it previously in the "trilogy".

Barf Hideous. In the TFA novelization, it was established that Palpatine did not create Snoke but rather that Palpatine had first sensed Snoke's existence right before he died on the Death Star, predicting that Snoke will be his successor. In this current franchise that claims all sources are equally canon, can we say ‘blatant retcon'? I never liked Snoke and I was glad that he was killed in TLJ. I actually like the idea of Snoke being a (nauseatingly hideous) Dark Side powered frankenstein monster of Palpatine's creation. But did the Emperor create Snoke just to be killed so Kylo Ren would become Supreme Leader? Seems convoluted. Why wouldn't the Emperor just present himself to Kylo instead of making Snoke? We know the real answer is because this "trilogy" wasn't mapped out in advance. Abrams handwaved that Palpatine was the true leader of the First Order like he had been the secret true leader of the Separatists by being Dooku's master. The reveal in TRoS may have been more effective if there had even been a hint of Palpatine as the puppet master earlier in the trilogy.

Don’t call it a comeback. I've been here for years. When the Resistance leaders receive confirmation of Palpatine's return, Poe said, " So Palpatine’s been out there all the time, pulling the strings" to which Leia replied, "Always, in the shadows from the very beginning." How the hell do they know that?! And for Leia you can't say it's the Force, because Leia had the Force before this film. There was no hint Palpatine was even still alive before this movie. This dialogue was contrived purely to deliver plot information about the change in premise that Palpatine's return brings. And due to the sad reality of Carrie Fisher's passing, all of Leia's dialogue in this film was unused dialogue from the filming of TFA so we know Leia's line was clearly referring to Snoke originally, not Palpatine who just got shoehorned into the end of this trilogy.

"It's another Death Star." So Palpatine was behind the scene pulling the strings on Snoke and controlling the First Order through him. If Palpatine's secret Sith planet had hundreds of fully crewed death stars, why would Palpatine even have the First Order go through the trouble of transforming a planet into the Starkiller weapon. It's outrageous that this movie even makes me say this, but the Sith Eternal cult alone made the First Order completely obsolete.

Han and Lando. Why do Rey and Finn only know Han Solo by his name and not his appearance, but they know who Lando is as soon as they see him? In the past year, did Leia require them to go through a Resistance course on recognizing all the heroes of the rebellion? It just seems odd.

The last star war. When the Sith dagger translation directs them to a moon in the Endor System, Finn notes that is "where the last war ended." Um, no. The last war ended in the Jakku system. In TFA, Finn literally flew around and inside of wreckage from the final battle of that war. Abrams invented the Battle of Jakku as where the last war ended, so why can't he even maintain continuity with his own prior SW film?

"Why does everyone wanna go back to Jakku?" Ochi of Bestoon was a Sith loyalist who served Palpatine in the years he spent on Exegol. It was his mission to find Rey and bring her to Palpatine. On his ship, Rey's parents state that Rey is no longer on Jakku and that he'll never find her, but this is the ship Rey watched taking off as she was left on Jakku with Unkar Plutt. Why would Rey's parents say she is no longer on Jakku if she actually was there? Isn't that giving Ochi a hint of where to look? If Ochi found Rey's parents on Jakku, couldn't he have looked harder for an abandoned girl there? Ochi left Jakku with Rey parents as Rey watched the ship flying away, so he must have just missed her.

A trilogy of Huxes, and Pryde. General Hux has a different role in each film of the "trilogy". In the first film, Abrams portrays him dramatically as zealot for the First Order who hates the Republic and Resistance with a burning passion. He teared up at the display of the super-weapon's power after his super evil bad guy speech on the Starkiller base. Let the past die… In TLJ, "Hugs" became the brunt of jokes, and slapstick comedy as Snoke abused him. Let the past die… In TRoS, Hux is now a traitor to the First Order and actually helps the Resistance just for something petty, just wanting Kylo Ren to lose. Really?? Since TFA, Kylo has been able to read minds, but he can't read that Hux is a traitor?? And then to top it off, in the middle of the film Hux is killed off by General Pryde, an older and more competent First Order officer, just because he is a former Imperial officer with ties to Palpatine. TRoS makes you wonder how Hux ever outranked Pryde before TRoS? [I read online that the purpose of Pryde in the film is to misdirect the audience into thinking he was the FO traitor (because he was a new character) so there would be more surprise at the reveal of it being Hux. That didn't work on me because I never once suspected Pryde (or anyone in particular) of being the traitor. That could have been because I wasn't engaged by the story enough to really even care who the FO traitor was.]

Meet the new boss. TFA introduced the First Order and its three villain leaders: Snoke, Kylo Ren, Hux. TLJ killed off Snoke, and Ren became the new First Order Supreme Leader. Then right at the beginning of TRoS, Ren loses his main villain status to Palpatine, and Palpatine says that he was behind Snoke. Hux helps the Resistance throughout the film until getting killed off in the middle of it, and Kylo Ben turns good in the middle of it. A new First Order character takes charge of the FO in the vacuum left by Hux and Kylo Ren. In TRoS, the villainous First Order is just conveniently subsumed by the new Final Order, giving this "trilogy" a villainous bait and switch just to suit TRoS. And if Kennedy had really always planned on Palpatine appearing in Episode IX, then General Pryde would have been in TFA and Palpatine's return would have been hinted at too. At the end of TRoS, it is worth noting that the miraculous destruction of the Sith Eternal forces on Exegol inspires the rest of the galaxy to rise up against the First Order. So not only is the First Order-Republic war that started in TFA not shown at all in TRoS, the war is resolved in one sentence of dialogue.

The First Order is so, like, last year. What's with Abram's two evil empire names? The New Order was the ideology of Palpatine's Galactic Empire. What is the First Order the first at? The first empire with the word "Order" in its name in the Unknown Regions? The name would have made some sense if it had actually existed before the Galactic Empire, but it didn't. Palpatine's Sith planet apparently existed as a backup power base during the Galactic Empire. Palpatine's Sith empire was revealed in TRoS and it took control of the First Order, with Palpatine calling it the Final Order. How silly. Palpatine implies that he named the First Order but it make no sense that Palpatine would choose that name. It seems like Abram's real meanings behind the two empire names are "the bad guys of my first Star Wars film" and "the bad guys of my final Star Wars film".

The knights of lame. The previous two films mention the Knights of Ren and we finally get to see them in final episode of this "trilogy". But still I ask, who are they? They didn't get much screen time in TRoS and we didn't get any backstory. Are they Luke's former students who joined Kylo Ben? Are they even Force-sensitive? [The Visual Dictionary says they are, but to a stunted degree like Inquisitors.] At some point during the film they changed allegiances to Palpatine offscreen, unless they were always secretly loyal to Palpatine (which was never established). Who knows? They just stand there watching Kylo watch his Ren helmet being reforged, and there is a really silly moving shot of the six of them just standing on top of a mesa in the desert looking out in different directions, as if they were a metal band filming an MTV video for Headbanger's Ball. The only things they really do in the film are capturing Chewie (without a fight) and "Boba Fetting" Ochi's ship in an asteroid field to track the heroes. The knights were conveniently forgotten about multiple times when Kylo Ren could have used their help. They always appear together as a group and there could be two or six of them – In the film it never even matters how many there are. They have no speaking lines in the film and no individual identities except for differing costumes and weapons. Their appearances are uninteresting and seems to be based on rejected character designs for Kylo Ren. They need red lightsabers. Even stupid gimmick lightsabers might have been better than just normal melee weapons and a couple blasters. Ben takes them out quickly on Exegol. Boooring. [The Visual Dictionary says Unknown Regions folklore warns of marauders… zzzzzz…]

"You were a spice runner?" Poe's newly revealed scoundrel background actually helps explain why he (instead of Finn) had been the one that came up with the idea to contact Maz in TLJ, but it's main purpose in TRoS is his underworld droidsmith contact needed for the Threepio Sith translation issue. Though canon had already established that Poe was a New Republic pilot before going to the Resistance, in TRoS we learn that he also was a spice runner on Kijimi with Zorii Bliss and the rest of her crew. When did Poe have time to do that exactly? Zorii says he left spice running to go to the Resistance, not the New Republic. So maybe he was a smuggler during his time as a New Republic pilot, but just on the side? And we don't learn why Poe gave up being a spice runner. [There is an upcoming youth novel that will show Poe became a spice runner in his teens, before he became a New Republic pilot.] In TRoS there is an odd attempt by Zorii Bliss to lure Poe back to the ‘spice side' which he rejects because he "can't give up on this war." Poe's scoundrel characterization is dramatically limp in TRoS. The only thing it does besides the droidsmith plot point is that Poe's refusal to return to being a scoundrel again must be what inspired Zorii Bliss to later join the Battle of Exegol, which would be more important if anyone really cared about Zorii Bliss. At least we got to see Babu Frik one more time out of that.

The wisdom of Maz. In TFA, Maz Kanata was a funny and annoying character. The idea of old Han having a friend who was a 1000 year-old goggled Force-sensitive alien and former pirate queen who ran a bar and way house for pirates and smugglers is rich. But Maz, a scoundrel, hypocritically told Han that he had to go back to the Resistance cause. In TLJ the absurdity was cranked up for laughs as she was in a 'union dispute' blaster fight, but she helped the Resistance with some information. Well, the good news is that Maz finally stopped being a hypocrite and outright joined the Resistance at some point in between TLJ and TRoS. The bad news is, her role in TRoS isn't funny and she instead just becomes a Yoda wannabe, only providing trite little narrations/commentaries on the plot. Maz looks creepy this time around since she was realized with a practical animatronic model instead of CG, and Maz sat out the final battle just to stand there and watch Leia's deceased body. Zorii Bliss picks up the role of TFA-Maz by being a scoundrel who encourages Poe to not give up on his cause (after the odd attempt to pull him back into the criminal life). At least Zorii does help the cause later in the same movie, but it's dramatically flat. Why does Zorii say "Leia never gave up" in the final battle? The scoundrel who just joined the cause knows about Leia's death and speaks about her character to Poe? Was it just because Maz was not there to say it?

The Hermit has people skills. In TLJ Leia got zero response to her distress call on Crait calling for aid against the First Order which was currently engaged in an offscreen galactic war with the Republic, but Luke's sacrifice inspired the galaxy, right? No. TRoS takes place a year later and the galaxy is back to being afraid of the First Order and not standing up to them. That is a slap in the face to the life and sacrifice of Luke in TLJ! Then Lando convinces countless allies to ride to the Resistance's rescue at an almost unreachable Sith stronghold, against far more impossible odds: a reborn Palpatine and a massive Sith fleet of death stars. How did Lando convince them to help when Leia's desperate plea for help and Luke's sacrifice couldn't? I now Lando is smooth but shouldn't the galaxy be more afraid of Palpatine since he came back from the dead? The galaxy's like, "First Order takeover, eh what are ya gonna do?" and then they are like, "Palpatine's back with hundreds of death stars? Aw hell no! Let's go find the hidden Sith cult planet and get 'em!"
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[Whill]

The Rise of Skywalker and THE STAR WARS SAGA

"A good question for another time." So how did Maz acquire Anakin's lightsaber? TRoS gave Abrams "another time" to explain it but he didn't. After seeing TRoS, I'm sure Abrams never had any intention of answering Han's question.

That red planet. It's nice that Mustafar appeared in TRoS, but it appeared so briefly and wasn't even identified in the film. [The Visual Dictionary states that Kylo Ren fought an army of Vader-worshipping cult members to acquire Vader's wayfinder. This being explicit in the film would have helped].

Ghosts of the past. In TFA Kylo Ren talked to the melty helmet of Vader, but in TRoS it was revealed that he has long heard voices, including Vader's voice. Palpatine said he has been all the voices. If Kylo heard Vader's voice, that would mean that he would have had to believe that Anakin was a Dark Side Force ghost. How could he come to believe such a stupid idea? Luke's Jedi training of Ben shouldn't have included anything to suggest that even being possible (Luke may have even heard his father's voice through the Force). However, Ben does see his father Han Solo plain as day in front of him and talks to him despite knowing he only exists in his mind. It's probable that Kylo Ben is quite insane, but this is not conclusive in the films.

"Come on buddy. We're not out of this yet." TRoS continues and completes the "sequel trilogy" forgetting that the Falcon has two turret quad guns. If the Falcon crew could include a limbless mechanic who soon disappears from the film, the escape from Sinta Glacier could have had a second gunner and the scene could have been expanded to have more TIEs. And to kill two mynocks with one blast, they could have had the seldom seen Rose man the other gun to give her something else to do in the film. The final battle could have had one of a lot of old characters on the second gun. ("Meesa back, Palpy!") Threepio was completely absent from the final battle. (He wasn't even watching Leia's body back at the base with Maz.) It might have been appropriate for Lando and Chewie to take Threepio with them on their mission to round up an allied fleet, and maybe Threepio's hard reboot could have caused some residual battle droid programming to come out so he could get in the second gun! A missed opportunity to tie into AotC. Die Sith dogs!

The Holdo maneuver was "one in a million"? Han's exact words to describe Luke's shot that destroyed the first Death Star were used to describe the Holdo maneuver? Was Holdo Force-sensitive? I'm not saying that what she did was easy, but Finn saying the Holdo maneuver was "one in a million" is slap in the face to Luke's feat. Also, a Holdo maneuver inexplicably happened at the end of the movie over the Forest Moon of Endor. I bet that one was one in a million.

I am your grandfather. Rey is a Palpatine. I don't have any problem with that mere fact alone. That was one possible thing that could have come out of that mystery box. The issue is with the execution of that story choice. OK, so Rey's grandfather was Palpatine. Who was Rey's grandmother? Who were Rey's parents? Palpatine having a son is a big deal but Abrams treated him as a nobody that appears for a second in a flashback. Palpatine being Rey's grandfather only repeats Luke having a villain father in the classic trilogy. The regurgitated attempt at the drama of whether Rey will turn to the Dark Side feels forced.

The Death Star? D-O asked Rey, "What is that?" and Rey answered, "That's the Death Star, a bad place from an old war" as if there were only ever one DS. Technically that was a Death Star. (I'm pretty sure this entire "trilogy" likewise has no distinction between the two Death Stars in any reference.)

Duels of the final fate? I have the Death Star setting on my 'like' list way above. But we get no lightsaber duel in the final battle of this film, so the one at the Death Star II wreckage was actually the final lightsaber battle of this film, "trilogy" and "saga". The setting made for a cool lightsaber duel, inside and outside. But unfortunately, the battle was way too short. And it got dumb when Kylo started doing this ridiculous looking one-handed backwards-hilt fighting style, and Rey quickly copied it and started doing it too. I get that you want to try to have some variety with lightsaber battles, but variety also comes from the environment and ways that can be incorporated into the action. The final lightsaber duel of the final "Skywalker" episode went lame fast. Earlier in the film, Rey and Kylo Ren had that silly "remote bond duel" where Kylo was the planet surface and Rey was in Kylo's star destroyer during their "battle". I'm sure Abrams sold Kennedy on that being "two lightsaber duels in one". Then of course he probably also counts the three second duel Rey had with a vision of her evil self in the wayfinder room, which was really just made as a misdirection for the trailer. TLJ set the bar to zero and the token lightsaber "duels" we got in TRoS weren't much. Sad.

"No, it's a short range fighter." Not only does Ben Solo make it back to Exegol without a in an Imperial TIE fighter he must have gotten on Death Star II, a ship that doesn't even have a hyperdrive. It's not like Ben couldn't have found a Lambda-class shuttle.

Stormtroopers R' Us. I've never liked the First Order stormtrooper helmet design, so I really disliked the fact that apparently the Sith empire's stormtrooper units are supplied by the same manufacturer as the First Order's. (But how would they be delivered without a wayfinder?) The death star destroyers are an Imperial design so why are the Sith stormtrooper armors a First Order design? The Sith troopers could have been red Imperial stormtroopers and fans would have ate it up. Was it just so the audience wouldn't start rooting for the red stormtroopers to win?

"They're obviously skilled at committing high treason. Perhaps Leader Snoke should consider using a clone army." Jannah's entire stormtrooper unit mutinied against First Order. Wow. The clone army shown in RotS blindly murdered their generals on command, so maybe the FO should have made a clone army.

"That's not how the Force works!" So Finn has his own ‘Force awakening' and suddenly becomes Force-sensitive in TRoS. Why wouldn't the First Order test their stormtrooper kids for midi-chlorians when they first abduct them to screen out Force-sensitives? I'm sure they wouldn't want stormtroopers to suddenly realize they are Force-sensitive. Also, Finn tells Jannah that the instinct that he and her stormtrooper unit had to not fire on civilians was the Force speaking to them. (You need the Force to have morality?) If Finn's right about the Force, was Jannah's entire unit all Force-sensitive? Is everyone Force-sensitive? If Finn is wrong, then he isn't that perceptive in the Force himself.

The Force ghost unleashed. In the Lucas trilogies, Force ghosts apparently couldn't do anything but appear reassuringly and communicate information in different places. Since Vader had been intent on killing all Jedi, communication seemed to be the "power" Obi-Wan had referred to in ANH: the ability to guide Luke even after death. In TESB, Ghost Obi-Wan indicated that if Luke faced Vader, Ghost Obi-Wan would be powerless to help Luke. In RotJ, Ghost Obi-Wan and even freshly deceased Ghost Yoda were powerless to help Luke against Vader or Palpatine – The only thing they could do was help Anakin become a Force ghost after Palpatine was dead. It didn't seem that the Force ghosts had powers over the physical world. TLJ had Ghost Yoda summon a lightning bolt which was a bit unsettling, but Abrams just had to top that. In TRoS Ghost Luke not only catches a lightsaber that Rey threw, but also raises his X-wing out of the water! According to TRoS, the power that Force ghosts have is to continue having the same exact power they had in physical life. If a Force ghost can levitate a submerged X-wing with the Force, then a Force ghost could more physically assist a Jedi in a battle against a Sith Lord. But they didn't, which tells me that giving Ghost Yoda powers with Luke and Ghost Luke powers with Rey shouldn't have been there.

The Falcon's runway? There's a line of dialogue about the fact that the Falcon's landing struts are damaged and the next time we see it, it's cut a scar into the country side of Kef Bir. The problem with this is, the Falcon doesn't have wheels and land like a plane. It lands vertically with repulsorlift tech and could have landed much more softly. In Solo, the previously released Disney SW film, the Falcon landed and took off at Savereen with all of the landing struts severely damaged or destroyed! The only purpose in the plot of TRoS for this skid-landing seems to be that it caused more damage to explain why they didn't just fly the Falcon over to the Death Star wreckage right away to go after Rey. Why couldn’t the Falcon have just landed on the Death Star wreckage directly in the first place? It apparently did do it later to rescue Finn and Jannah. (Well of course, the real reason is because the dagger had to be used from the shore and the plot dictated that Rey go to the Death Star first, then Finn and Jannah, then everyone else.)

"Jam the speeders!" Is this even a thing? An FO commander expected the Resistance ground forces to have speeders, but instead the good guys ride beasts out of the transport. Well, if they had said "Jam the droids!" at least they could have taken out BB-8. And where were the "blaster jammers"? It's a good thing they didn't have "beast jammers"! It seems that the only reason Abrams invented "speeder jamming" is just so it would not be in the film. It comes across as artificial inflation of the drama around the Resistance unexpectedly charging out on animals. I like the Orbaks and the scene still would have worked without "speeder jammers" being foiled.

Fire everything! Allegiant General Pryde orders the fleet to open fire with ion cannons, but the much more destructive turbolaser batteries open fire. Is Abrams even trying to get the established universe right?

Endor veterans. Wedge's one line cameo is lame. "Cut. Thank you, Mr. Lawson. Your check's in the mail." And it was disappointing that they didn't put Wedge in an old Alliance X-Wing. Nien Nunb would have been a better choice to have on the Falcon since he did serve on the Falcon at the Battle of Endor. Chewie's the co-pilot now, but Nien Nunb could have been a gunner. And the film didn't show Nien Nunb with Lando at any point – It would have been nice to see them reunite and hug after all the years.

Antisullustanism? In the past year, Finn is promoted from stormtrooper deserter to Resistance general, and Rose was promoted from a Resistance junior technician to commander, but after over 30 years of service Nien Nunb is still a mere lieutenant commander? In the final battle of TRoS, we do see one quick shot of Nien Nunb on the bridge of that ship and being Sith-lightninged, but it never shows him after that in the film. The author of the forthcoming novelization confirmed on Twitter that Leia's old ship the Tantive IV was destroyed in the final battle offscreen, with LCdr Nien Nunb at the helm who died with all hands. But at least Snap Wexley got a dramatic death in the film.

Star cruiser, crash? It was nice to briefly see the Forest Moon of Endor, but Wicket and his son a shown watching a recent Holdo Maneuver in the sky. What? Maybe General Pryde sent a star destroyer to the system after learning about Kylo Ren turning good there. But what in the Endor system could have attacked a star destroyer and defeated it?

Hero of Yavin? At first I hated Maz giving Chewie the Yavin medal because I thought it was overt fan pandering due to outrage over him not getting one on Yavin. Of course Chewie deserved a medal. (It was probably his nagging that finally resulted in Han turning around to go help Luke.) But I've long accepted that Chewie was intentionally not given one for a reason, and Lucas' statement that medals don't matter to Wookiee culture work for me. (Chewie not getting a medal was a vestige of an earlier screenplay that had the final battle featuring Wookiees and taking place on their homeworld.) Giving Chewie one now implied that it was wrong to not give him one back then. I have since realized that in-universe it wasn't meant to be a medal the Alliance never gave Chewie, but rather it was Han's actual medal that Leia apparently kept for the 35 years since Yavin. Even if medals don't mean anything to Wookiees, I can better see that maybe Chewie might appreciate it as a keepsake to remind him of Han, Luke, and Leia. However, it being Han's medal in-universe still doesn't change the fact that the scene is only there as fan service that comes across as superfluous.

Wrong desert planet. The old lady that walked through the Lars Homestead and asked Rey for her identity had an animal that was a species which had existed on Pasaana. Not a big deal, but would it have hurt Abrams to just use an animal that had previously been seen on Tatooine, like a Bantha, Dewback, or Eopie?

Sad beeps. I object to what TRoS and this whole "sequel trilogy" has done to Artoo. It's not that I don't like BB-8, a younger and more mobile astromech droid. Now it does seem like a weird design, that the head is somehow held close to it magnetically to stay in one place relative to the ground as the ball-body rolls underneath it. But I guess if electronic droids can survive being submerged and waterlogged, then I guess they could also survive extreme internal magnetism. But I resent that BB-8 was created just to replace Artoo in most every way. It should not be beyond a talented writer that truly cares about the legacy characters to write ways to incorporate Artoo into the action of the stories more. In the Battle of Exegol at the end of the film that had everyone (except Maz and Threepio), BB-8 went with Finn for the "ground" mission while Artoo was in Poe's x-wing. Those were prudent assignments as BB-8 is the mobile one who could roll around the star destroyer surface. And it is nice Artoo at least got to be a part of the final battle, but this comes at the end of a "trilogy" where Artoo has spent most of the time in the prop closet. I despise the end of this movie where it is BB-8 with Rey looking at the twin suns. Artoo actually has a history with that place. I mentioned it to someone who replied that BB-8 is Rey's droid. Um, no, BB-8 has always been Poe's little buddy, and BB-8 went with Finn in the final battle. BB-8 is only there with Rey on Tatooine to fulfill the total replacement of Artoo. RIP R2-D2. We'll always have the two Lucas trilogies.

The Falcon. At the end of the movie, why does Rey have the Falcon? It belongs to Chewie, who is still alive. A better ending to the film would have been showing Lando, Chewie, Threepio, and Artoo on the Falcon landing ramp waving goodbye to Rey and then go up the ramp as it is closing. Then as Rey looks out on the twin suns, the Falcon flies across their view and up. We're outta here!

Fleet of death star destroyers. In TFA the Starkiller planet had a "hyperlight" superweapon that could drain its sun to destroy entire star systems remotely. In TRoS, Abrams unbelievably topped that. In this film there were hundreds of superweapon ships on Exegol (and one out in the galaxy). There is no way that even a single one of these could have been completed before RotJ because Death Star II wasn't even done yet and Palpatine thought it would be enough to destroy the Alliance, and Death Star II had been under construction for at least 4 years by then. According to Abrams, while Palpatine was dead the Sith Eternals cult miniaturized superlaser technology and began constructing hundreds of death star destroyers which were completed in about 30 years. Enough power to subjugate many galaxies developed in the space of 31 years in one single star system. However, Pryde says that the Final Order will increase the First Order's resources ten-thousand fold, so where was the rest of this gargantuan universe-conquering fleet in the Exegol system? Still underwater with the evil octopuses waiting on a new clone machine to crew them all?

Dark science, cloning, secrets only the Sith knew, yadda yadda yadda. Palpatine's initial appearance is weird. His face is much better than it was in RotJ, but his body is wrecked and his hands look worse with fingers crumbling away. He offers no explanation for his return or condition other than quoting himself in RotS about the unnatural abilities of the Dark Side. The Resistance historian guy speculated about secret dark science/cloning. Palpatine original body would be about 120 years old in this film. Palpatine's face looking much better than it did from 54 to 31 years ago would suggest cloning was involved à la Dark Empire: Palpatine transferring his soul to a new clone body. But his body being all wrecked with burnt hands and a crane needed to hold him upright would suggest a miraculous resurrection of the same body that died a horrible death, like being in a giant space station that exploded. Just pick one! The intentional contradiction and vagueness of his return would only improve the film if the explanation would have been worse, which means they really had no good reason for Palpatine to be back in bodily form except to have the wonderful Ian McDiarmid reprise the Emperor one more time. Not providing an explanation for Palpatine's return is an insult to the talent and legacy of Ian McDiarmid. [Overt Recent Retcon Alert: TLJ's canon Visual Dictionary states Vader fulfilled the prophecy and destroyed the Sith.]

"I am all the Sith!" Palpatine explains to Rey that all the Sith in his lineage exist within him because when the apprentice kills the master, the master inhabits the apprentice's body. The problem with this is, Palpatine's "All the Sith" soul did not transfer to Anakin when he supposedly killed Palpatine in RotJ. Anakin died on the light side. So that would have to mean that Palpatine never died in RotJ, which conflicts with Palpatine's face looking much better than when he died. Or did his clone kill his miraculously living body so he could transfer his soul to the clone body, but the clone body got severely wrecked in the attack? Also, if the Sith soul transfer from killing the Sith is a thing, why would Palpatine need to be back in his own body or a clone body if he could come back in anyone's body as long as they killed him? So we are back to the fact that Palpatine's soul could have come back in a different body, but then TRoS wouldn't have had Ian McDiarmid. I hope he at least got paid a ton of money for this mess.

You get to be a Force ghost! You get to be a Force ghost! Everyone gets to be a Force ghost! In TRoS, it was set-up in Rey's training montage that the definition of her becoming a Jedi would be "the voices of the Jedi who came before" being with her instead of "the Force" being with her. She supposedly achieved this at the climax of the film. This absolutely does not work with the prior film franchise. When Vader struck Kenobi down and his body disappeared, Obi-Wan became a Force ghost with the ability to communicate with the living (which he used to help Luke escape and destroy the first Death Star). Vader put his foot into Kenobi's robes a few times to see if he was in there. Becoming a ghost was clearly not something all the Jedi did. The ghost of Qui-Gon taught the power to Yoda and Obi-Wan after the Separatist War had ended. Anakin Skywalker seems to be a special exception by way of being the Chosen One combined with Yoda and Obi-Wan helping him maintain his identity at the moment of his death. When Rey hears "the voices of the Jedi" she hears Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin, but she also hears several other deceased Jedi that never would have learned the power to survive death as a Force ghost. That's not how the Force works! Not all Jedi become Force ghosts when they die. Abrams should know that, but it seems he just wanted something analogous to Palpatine being "all the Sith". And, Rey didn't hear Leia who died earlier in this movie! In a prior film Leia actually said, "Rey, may the Force be with you." They could have used that audio. Or did Leia not become a Force ghost until Ben died…?

Leia's body. It's hard to believe I even had to type that – These words are now far away from the happy meaning they had in the 80s. Why is it that when Leia and Rey die their bodies stay solid, but when Ben dies he disappears immediately? The bodies of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Luke disappeared at their moments of death and they became Force ghosts. In this movie Ben Solo's body faded away at the moment of his death too (Luke must have taught the Force Ghost power to all his students). However it is totally a new thing in TRoS where Leia's dead body didn't disappear until the end when Ben died. Why, JJ? I felt it was disturbing to have Leia's covered dead body be in the film so much, so her body should have faded away back when she had first died. Of course, if Rey's body had faded away when she died, Ben couldn't have brought her back to life. So did Leia and Rey develop an alternate version of the Force Ghost power with delayed body fading, just in case there is another Jedi nearby that will give their life to bring the dead Jedi back to life?

Why did Rey bury Anakin's and Leia's lightsabers at the Lars Homestead where Luke grew up? Tatooine was traumatic for Anakin, Leia was enslaved by Jabba the Hutt there, and Luke hated the planet, only wanting to leave it. Was it because Rey had no bodies to bury and she just had to bury something in the family cemetery plots by the bodies of Shmi, Beru, Owen, and Owen's parents? Or is Shmi's skeleton a fitting makeshift underground ‘lightsaber safe' for the sabers made by her son and granddaughter? Or does that spot just mark where the display case is going to be in the eventual Jedi Temple that will be built on the site of the Lars Homestead? In the film as-is, the burial of the lightsabers seems odd. If the lightsabers are symbolic of Luke and Leia who have no bodies to burn in a Jedi funeral pyre, then the lightsabers should have been burned, not buried. Burning them could have made fireworks and we'd have a little callback to the end of RotJ.

The Chosen One? In RotJ, Anakin Skywalker returned and fulfilled the Prophecy of the Chosen One who would bring balance to the Force by destroying the Sith. But the problem is, one of the two Sith he destroyed in RotJ returned in TRoS, which would mean that he didn't fulfill the prophecy after all. Anakin's Force ghost told Rey to "Bring back the balance, Rey, as I did." So the balance Anakin brought back didn't last long because Palpatine came back to life fairly quickly. If Rey has to just repeat what Anakin had done, he wouldn't really be The Chosen One, would he? Anakin and Rey are The Chosen Two? Or is Rey the Chosen One? Was Qui-Gon wrong? TRoS makes RotJ and Lucas' whole film saga dramatically limp. [Overt Recent Retcon Alert: TLJ's canon Visual Dictionary states Vader fulfilled the prophecy and destroyed the Sith.]

Dyad in the Force? Anakin Skywalker is even further marginalized in TRoS because it features a different prophecy meant to distract from the Prophecy of the Chosen One that Abrams retconned. Rey and Ren were a "Dyad in the Force," where two Force-sensitive beings share a special Force bond. In TLJ Snoke indicated he had created this connection, but he could have been lying about that. Snoke did at least know about this bond before he died. In TRoS Palpatine seems to just notice this special bond when Rey and Ren are on front of him together, so he may not be aware of everything Snoke knew. Who knows? What exactly is a Force Dyad? Who knows? Palpatine said that a "Dyad in the Force" has been unseen for generations… Is he setting up a future prequel film set in the time of the pre-Empire Republic?

A kiss is probably more than Shmi got. Rey proclaiming herself a Skywalker after kissing Leia's son is an odd throwback to Leia finding out she was a Skywalker after kissing her twin brother on the lips. Ew, again. The Rey-Ben kiss served no purpose in the plot of this film… unless they are setting up a possible further extension of the "Skywalker Saga" by establishing that Ben placing his hand on Rey's belly to bring her back to life also may have also induced her midi-chlorians to create life within Rey, a baby that is spiritually the offspring of Ben Solo. And if Palpatine's soul did inhabit Rey's body when she destroyed him, then maybe his soul joined with the child and Rey will give birth to a child whose body is inhabited by the soul of the child's great-grandfather, and all his Sith masters who came before him! Nooooooooo!
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[Whill]

TRoS, The Sequel Trilogy, and The Skywalker Saga CONCLUSIONS

I've spent hours talking with a couple family members and friends about TRoS, it's so-called "trilogy", and the whole film saga. I've included a few quotes from them in bold below…

From the get-go in TFA, the premise of the "sequel trilogy" unresolved a lot of the SW film saga. The Alliance to Restore the Republic did so, but a new evil empire rose. Luke had started a new Jedi Order to pass on what he had learned, but it was destroyed by a student of his who had turned to the Dark Side, Leia and Han's son. Luke went into exile. Han and Leia separated. A new rebellion rose to counter the thread of the new evil empire. In addition to the irresolution of the film saga, TFA is a modern remake of ANH. But TFA is an entertaining SW movie, so I was optimistic that the "sequel trilogy" would be worth the repeated plot points and character types. TLJ was disappointing, but it was still possible for the unexpected changes in direction to lead to a great third chapter and new fitting end to the film saga. I was still hopeful it would all be worth the expansion of the film saga. Sadly, TRoS just didn't make it worth it for me…

"TRoS is a fitting epic conclusion to the Lucas Star Wars saga."

In the context of this film, the mere title of The Rise of Skywalker is a slap in the face to the Star Wars Saga. Besides being a ridiculous escalation of scale, there being hundreds of death stars that all get destroyed by random Core World citizens in TRoS diminishes Luke Skywalker's accomplishment in ANH. In RotJ, Anakin Skywalker was the titular Jedi who returned to destroy Vader and Palpatine. The PT gave us the deeper context for this triumph, that Anakin Skywalker fulfilled the Prophecy of the Chosen One by destroying the Sith. In TRoS, the former Jedi who turned to the Dark Side, destroyed his Jedi Order, and became a literal Vader-wannabe also unoriginally returned to the light. Palpatine inexplicably returns just so Rey could destroy the Sith, dramatically usurping Anakin Skywalker to become the Chosen One. And the redeemed dark Jedi sacrifices his life to save Rey, the first in a new line of Jedi like Luke had been when Vader died to save him in the original end of the saga. And then to top it all off, at the end of TRoS Rey steals Anakin's last name and stands on the grave of his mother while looking at Luke's twin suns. There's something hollow here.

There are more contradictions and disservices to the Lucas SW films in TRoS. A few of the other big ones are: (1) Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter is an undeveloped contrivance, (2) Force ghosts have awesome powers over the physical world, and (3) every past Jedi is inexplicably a Force ghost now. And Abrams's statement that TRoS is going to tie all the films together was just dishonest marketing because TRoS opposes the prior episodes much more. My son doesn’t have all the issues I have but after we last saw TRoS, he said, "Daddy, I like this trilogy more when I think of it as a separate universe from the other movies." My son wasn't the only one who expressed that sentiment to me…

"Will, what if the sequel trilogy is a just a parallel universe instead of a sequel to the Lucas films?"

TLJ was a left turn from TFA in story development, but it really isn't that contradictory to TFA (it is spiritually, but not so much continuity-wise). There was once an discussion here that Episode IX should introduce time travel into the story to "undo" TLJ. I was vehemently opposed to that because Star Wars films shouldn't break genre just to eliminate canon disliked by a very vocal minority of disgruntled fans. It was possible to devise a third episode that tied both previous episodes together with it, but they didn't. There is just no way that TLJ and TRoS can exist in the same universe. Now I'm thinking that time travel might have been better than what we got, retcons with no explanations. These movies are not a cohesive trilogy, even is a different universe from the Lucas films...

"OK Will, you didn't like TLJ a lot anyway but you enjoy TFA, so can't you just ignore TLJ and think of TFA and TRoS as the two episodes of an Abrams Duology parallel universe with some mental connective continuity in between them?"

That's a popular fan response I've ran into. TFA and TRoS tying together well would seem to be a reasonable expectation based on them having the same director and cowriter, but the big problem with that is, TRoS inexplicable contradicts TFA almost as much as TLJ! It is quite unbelievable and absurd, but in TRoS, Abrams significantly opposed his own prior Star Wars film. And just look at the main protagonist. Not only does Hux serve a different role in each episode of this "trilogy" but we also have three different Rey backgrounds. In TFA, Abrams went out of his way to hint that Rey was a Skywalker in some way, then in TLJ she was just a nobody chosen by the Force, and then in TRoS she's a Palpatine.

Disney had trouble finding a director for Episode VII. The first time JJ Abrams was offered the job, he declined. After them not being able to find any other takers, they came back to Abrams who finally agreed to it. After Abrams was on the job to do VII, he was offered the opportunity to do the whole trilogy, and he hard declined. Disney hired Rian Johnson to direct VIII and later hired Colin Trevorrow to do IX. Abrams said that each director of the "sequel trilogy" had a maximum of individual creative freedoms over their film. He said that Johnson asked him to make a handful of changes to TFA to line it up with TLJ better and Abrams agreed to most but refused on a few because it didn’t seem right for TFA. After Abrams was done with VII, Trevorrow was fired by Lucasfilm for creative differences and Abrams was hired to do IX, which opposed both previous films. In 2019, Kathleen Kennedy and Abrams both stated it was always the plan to bring back Palpatine for Episode IX, but Trevorrow said Palpatine did not return in his Episode IX story. This and all the other evidence supports Kennedy and Abrams being dishonest about Palpatine and plans for Episode IX. Not only are these three movies an incoherent "trilogy", but TRoS renders TFA and TLJ both dramatically limp by making story choices that benefit TRoS at the expense of TFA and TLJ.

"OK Will, well how about just considering each episode as taking place as in its own universe. Surely you can appreciate TRoS more in that way, right?"

I truly wanted to enjoy TRoS a lot more than I did. The first time seeing it, I felt like a kid watching a new Star Wars movie until the necklace translocated from Ren to Rey. Then I first thought I have a bad feeling about this but just tried to enjoy it anyway. Not only does TRoS oppose the Lucas SW films and the first two films in the "sequel trilogy", but TRoS has more of its own issues than any prior SW film. TRoS is an incoherent clusterfudge of a movie. With the overediting it is fast paced, but the actions scenes are mostly brief and they feel truncated. The lightsaber battles, while they do exist in this film, were still too brief and silly. And actually, this movie has a lot more issues I didn't even mention here, but all this is bad enough, isn't it? Despite all I liked about the movie, there is more I didn't like about it. And there is just no way that TRoS could possibly exist as-is in my Star Wars Multiverse. But separating it from all the prior episodes does eliminate some issues and thus help with the appreciation of it, a little. And I'll still enjoy watching the movie more than I did writing this!

From 2005-2012, I was perfectly fine with the paradigm of six Star Wars films and no more. On October 30th 2012, I was shocked to learn there would be more Star Wars movies. My fandoms as a Star Wars film viewer and Star Wars GM are definitely on a Venn diagram. One of the first thoughts that went through my mind was, 'What if it contradicts my post-RotJ setting?' For the last 4 years, the status of the "sequel trilogy" in my personal canon has been undetermined pending the outcome. The only film in this "trilogy" that I truly enjoy is TFA, and I can enjoy on its own. Since it reprised plots and character types from the Lucas SW films, it feels a lot more like a reboot than a sequel. So I can canonize TFA into my personal multiverse, but not in my current universe. I'm putting it in my previous campaign universe where all the film metaplot was undetermined, now also known as the TFA Reboot Universe. The bottom line is: Even TFA, the best of the three, cannot exist in the same universe as the Lucas films.

So my 2012 post-RotJ setting continuity is officially back on the table for my current universe. It is not only relevant to that time period because a lot of aspects of it exist before RotJ, like my House of Palpatine detailing Palpatine's immediate family going back to before TPM. But unlike before, now I have stuff from a trio of films to pillage and repurpose for my game. I'm really excited to further developing my post-RotJ setting. I'll share details about it sometime.

"Ma Klounkee."

People may say I can't appreciate TRoS because I've changed and lost my connection to my inner child (since Solo I guess), but those who know me would say that accusation is laughable. This Star Wars film is unprecedented. When I was a kid, the Force wasn't magic and one superweapon at a time was good enough. My son, who has also seen the film four times, has more issues with TRoS than all the other films combined, and he is a child, and a playful one with a vivid imagination. He had tons of questions after first seeing the film, and I unexpectedly couldn't answer them. Even after all the research I've done for this work, I still haven't been able to answer most of them.

Threepio and Babu Frik are my favorite characters in TRoS. The fact that it isn't any of the four main characters or even the main villain says something about this film. Abrams is a talented filmmaker who made a financially successful movie that obviously pleased a lot of viewers. Abrams captured story beats that hit the mark, but the film does not stand up to scrutiny at all, especially after repeat viewings. He made a film good enough for casual moviegoers and some fans, but I feel that he could have worked harder and made a film that critical fans would have liked a lot more without losing any of the fans who enjoy the existing movie. In other words, he could have made a film for everyone, but he didn't. He went down the 'quicker, easier, and more seductive' dark path instead of making a film with integrity that truly completes the saga or even trilogy. Abrams was recently asked for a response to all the criticism of TRoS. His response was, "I get it" and that he was grateful for all those who supported it. He knows what he intentionally did to the film and all that really mattered was the end result of making money for Disney.

I think many fans will not disagree that the end result of this "campfire chain message" trio of films attempting to be passed off as a unified trilogy is an utter failure. I am morally opposed to the so-called "sequel trilogy" having that label because it is too rebooty and contrary to the classic trilogy to be called "sequel", and too contrary to the previous two episodes for the three films to be called a "trilogy." So I need different words. John Boyega said, "We’re in legit, legit 'Star Wars' now. We've got a trio up in here." Trio can mean, "a group of three things" but in music it can also mean, "a subordinate section in a scherzo, minuet, etc, that is contrastive in style and often in a related key." Henceforth, I shall now refer to the "sequel trilogy" as the "Disney Trio". This label isn't a bash – It is merely a more accurate designation that likewise differentiates it from the pre-Disney Lucas trilogies.

I may also at times refer to it as the "Rey trio" but that is not meant derogatorily against Rey. I have nothing against Rey as a character. In TFA it was very exciting to have Rey as the protagonist and there was just so much potential. In the end it was disappointing because they could have made a great story for Rey that didn't involve her usurping the chosen one prophecy fulfilment from Anakin. If Rey had been the reincarnation of Anakin Skywalker, that would have resolved the Chosen One issue of TRoS and worked with her backgrounds from the two previous films. But of course, the film had tons of other issues working against Rey too.

I also don't want to be taken as anti-Disney. I've enjoyed three of the five Disney films, and two of the five are metaplot in my current SWU. I am morally opposed to the "Skywalker Saga" label defining the nine episodes of the three "trilogies". Not only because I separate the Disney trio from the two good trilogies, but because the "Skywalker Saga" officially excludes RO and Solo, which in my opinion are much better films and supportive of the Lucas trilogies, with only a few minor discontinuities that are easy to fan-reconcile. And The Rise of Skywalker opposes the Star Wars Saga more than completes it. Beyond the existing films, I must admit I am a little worried that future Star Wars films will start having the Force work like it does in TRoS.

No Star Wars is perfect. The six Lucas SW films have a number of internal imperfections and interfilm discontinuities. I'm am not blind to the blemishes. Before TRoS, I have defended all Star Wars films from accusations of "flaws" and "plot holes" even the ones at the bottom of my rankings. TRoS has substantially more issues than every prior SW film. I feel there's just way too many things wrong with this film to redeem it.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you if you enjoyed TRoS. I am happy for you, and jealous of you because you have something in your Star Wars fandom that I don’t have. This 'thoughts and reactions' piece has largely been why TRoS didn't work for me. Am I wrong on any points? Do you agree with any of it? Do you disagree with anything here? Please feel free to chime in. I think some of these issues certainly could have explanations. I just have no motivation to solve them now that I've made my decisions for personal canon. Do you have responses to any problems I've identified? Go ahead and do what I have done all these years. Provide solutions (I supplied a few alone the way because old habits die hard). You could be helping someone struggling with the movie.

May the Force be with us!


Return to the top of the thread

Skip ahead in the thread to select posts:

7. The Rise of Skywalker and THE DISNEY FILM TRIO - REBUTTAL and RESPONSE
7. The Rise of Skywalker - Video Clips & Preliminary Novelization Revelations

8. TRoS and The Skywalker Saga Addendum: THE PROPHECY OF THE CHOSEN ONE

9. The Rise of Skywalker NOVELIZATION

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[MrNexx]

[ThrorII]

Great essay. Thank you for your thoughts.

I have yet to see RoS, and won't until I'm really bored one night and its on Disney+.

I liked TFA, and like you, realized it was a remake of ANH, but was willing to 'see where this goes'. I was hooked on the Rey story-plot, and thought she was either a clone of Luke's hand, or his child hidden away and 'mind wiped'. I WANTED to see where this new trilogy was going, and figured the first movie was nostalgic to catch us, then would take us on new adventures.

I very much disliked (dare I say hated?) TLJ. I felt it crapped on much of what I like about Star Wars (as a setting, as characters). I actually watched it again after finishing The Mandolorian, and while my wrath is lessened, and it is not AS BAD as I first thought, I still have no desire to watch it. It does not feel like Star Wars, nor do I like the break in tone and plot from TFA.

In total, I didn't like how the new Disney Star Wars treated the Lucas Star Wars myths -ruined heroes, failed victories, killing off old heroes one by one (sometimes off-screen).

And like you, I don't as a flat decision dislike "Disney Star Wars". I LOVE Rogue One, and tolerate Solo as decent but unnecessary and kind of pointless. But, DSW is definitely DIFFERENT from Lucas Star Wars:

1. The Force is different. No longer is training a necessity. 'Force Potential' is not a thing - it is more like Harry Potter magic - either you're a bomb-bad Jedi or not, no training needed (see baby Yoda for another example of that).

2, Hyperspace is different than most previous understandings. From Lightspeed Skipping, to Holdo Manuevers, mid-hyperspace communications, to Jumping INTO and OUT OF a planets atmosphere (even when a shield generator is in use). Rogue One, Solo, and the new 'trilogy' are all guilty of this.

Honestly, I wish DSW would have done with the Expanded Universe what Marvel Studios did with their extensive comics histories: Pick the best characters and story lines and re-imagine them for truncated self-contained stories. Disney already is cherry picking things from the EU, and they owned it already, so why not?

Anyway, thank you.
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[Whill]

[Barbarossa41]

With regards to the SDs not having shields, The most logical explanation is that they were too close together, and having shields up would have shorted out all of the generators.
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[Whill]

[Grimace]

The lack of shields in atmosphere was mentioned, I believe, In Rogue One when the Star Destroyer was hanging over Jedha. Or I read it. That Star Destroyer did not have its shields up either, but it constantly had TIE sentries patrolling and other ships in transit (as well as probably gunners with their fingers on the triggers). The Sith ships obviously didn't have that, as they were not expecting a bunch of ships to randomly show up and start battling them.

Thus the no shields in atmosphere was already established elsewhere. I know I either read it or heard it somewhere in the new trilogy.

[TauntaunScout]

Now imagine feeling this way since 1999.

[Grimace]

I don't have to imagine.

Think of feeling this way since 1977? Or '79? Or '83?

I used to think only Victory Class Star Destroyers could enter atmosphere. Turns out others can, but I can still rationalize and say the Victories can do it with shields, whereas the Imperials cannot.

[CRMcNeill]

Much to grok, but my first impression is that this validated my decision to not see them film / wait to see it on Disney+.
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