- Joined
- Jul 18, 1998
- Messages
- 22,509
- Reaction score
- 46,709
Online
So I watched this again recently and reading the upheaval thread I realized I never gave my thoughts on it here
So here it goes
1. THE LENGTH. I did not like this movie. I didn't like it at all. So the last thing I'd want is even more of it. That said Part 1 Part 2 was definitely a thing at this time and Rise could have benefited with more space to work with to let everything breathe. It felt so jam packed and rushed from scene to scene. A part 2 would have allowed much more development and maybe would have resulted in a much better finale
2. THE EMPEROR. If, Capital "I" Capital "F" IF you're going to make the Emperor the big bad again, for god's sake let it be a surprise. They spoiled it in the very first teaser with the laugh, and if you are the type of person who avoids all commercials, trailers, and coverage of a movie before you see it they spoiled it for you in the opening crawl. Can you imagine the crawl for ESB, "Darth Vader is obsessed with finding Luke Skywalker because he is Luke's father". The Emperor's return should have been a gasp inducing surprise. It wasn't. The Dark Horse comic Dark Empire also used a resurrected emperor to much greater effect, and had a young cloned Palpatine at the height of his powers. That would have been better
2A. Okay. the Emperor is back. How is he back? The answer is literally "Something, something Dark Side"
2B. So the Emperor's plan is to have Rey show up and kill him in rage which will open her up to the dark side which would allow Palpatine's soul to possess her body (or something like that) Rey shows up intending to do exactly that. Why in fork's sake would you tell her that's your evil plan?? Be quiet, Let her kill you and and take over her body. Done. You win. This is also like the 3rd time you've forked yourself up with your own force lightning
3. LEIA. This one gets a pass from me. They were between a rock and a hard place. My understanding was that the plan (such as it was) was to have one of the OG cast be the lead co star of each movie - Han in TFA, Luke in TLJ and Leia in ROS. Obviously that plan went out the window and they were scrambling as how to address it. Have Leia die off screen? Say she was somewhere else and for some reason not around as all this was going down? That would have disrespected Leia and Carrie Fisher. I'd say there was no easy choice and probably did the best they could under the circumstances
4. ROSE. This does not get a pass. If you ask the filmmakers they'll say that Leia was intended to be a big part of the third movie and Rose was intended to have a much bigger part as Leia's protégée/assistant. barely any Leia means barely any Rose. Note that onscreen result of this explanation is indistinguishable from the alternate possibility of totally caving to and placating racist and sexist online trolls
5. LANDO. As much as I loved seeing Billy Dee back on screen as Lando he didn't really have much to do
6. OG Trio - This is an overall trilogy complaint. To me Star Wars is always Han, Luke and Leia. I find even the best of non OG Star Wars (Rebels, Mandalorian) lacking just a bit because of it. I'm disappointed that we never saw a scene with all three together. In fact, I wished the sequel trilogy focused on them (or at least 7), Before the Disney buyout it seemed like 80%+ of the extended universe novels focused on the three of them. I really wanted the new movies to follow suit
7. CHEWBACCA - I wasn't fooled by the scene with Rey and Ren and the ship Chewie was on. I was expecting the ship the break apart because the same exact thing happened with Luke's lightsaber the previous movie when they fought over it using the force. When the ship exploded I didn't believe that Chewie was onboard for a second. I thought there was no way they would kill the Wookie off like that
8. C3PO - This was a bit better. Taking in the nonsensical idea of programming a droid with 6 million forms of communication except one. "Why would knowing the language of the universe's greatest threat ever come in handy?" but whatever. A hard factory reset and wiping out the memory of someone who's been there since day one could have been an emotional highlight of the movie. And would have played out much better if Luke and R2 was present. And what emotion was there was wiped away with the total cop out of "I'd never let R2 back up my memory......just kidding he did it last week"
9. SITH MAP - "The city of gold is real. We have a map that will lead us straight there" "where is the map?" “It was in a safe in a corner office of one of the World Trade Center Towers" "Well, the map is forking gone then isn't it" This map is somehow intact in the somehow intact Death Star throne room? No. I will say the visuals of the Death Star wreckage was cool though
10. HAN - This I liked. I thought 100% percent that Harrison Ford was done with Star Wars. The cameo was a nice surprise, and a needed one. Ren killed Han Solo, a huge part of many people's childhood. There’s no true redemption without addressing that and forgiving that, and Han is the only one who could have made that happen
11. FINN - Also not given much to do. And very annoyed with the constant “I have to tell you something” which he ended up never telling Rey
12. REY - One thing I did like about TLJ was the idea that anyone can be a hero, that Rey was no one special. Well it turns out that she was special after all. The Emperor's granddaughter at that
13. END BATTLE - The end of TLJ the new republic is pinned down and trapped, about to be wiped out. They beg for help. and no one shows up. No one. They could have solved that problem with one line "They are jamming all transmissions, our distress SOS isn't getting through!" unless I missed it that line wasn't there so it just looked like nobody came. End of ROS everyone and their brother shows up. Seemed to be a big disconnect to me. I also don't know how the shooting schedules went but it sure seemed like Star Wars wanted to copy the Avengers return scene from Endgame. When I saw the movie in the theater I laughed out loud at the Space Horses scene
14. SKYWALKER - Rey taking the Skywalker name made no sense to me
15. ANAKIN/VADER - When the sequel trilogy was first announced it was rumored that Hayden Christenson would reprise his role in at least one of them. there was even concept art showing an anakin/vader mash up to represent him struggling with the light and dark side even after death. I was no fan of his work in the prequels and wanted no part of that rumor. Now, I think it would have been a cool idea and wished they had figured a way to work it in
So here it goes
1. THE LENGTH. I did not like this movie. I didn't like it at all. So the last thing I'd want is even more of it. That said Part 1 Part 2 was definitely a thing at this time and Rise could have benefited with more space to work with to let everything breathe. It felt so jam packed and rushed from scene to scene. A part 2 would have allowed much more development and maybe would have resulted in a much better finale
2. THE EMPEROR. If, Capital "I" Capital "F" IF you're going to make the Emperor the big bad again, for god's sake let it be a surprise. They spoiled it in the very first teaser with the laugh, and if you are the type of person who avoids all commercials, trailers, and coverage of a movie before you see it they spoiled it for you in the opening crawl. Can you imagine the crawl for ESB, "Darth Vader is obsessed with finding Luke Skywalker because he is Luke's father". The Emperor's return should have been a gasp inducing surprise. It wasn't. The Dark Horse comic Dark Empire also used a resurrected emperor to much greater effect, and had a young cloned Palpatine at the height of his powers. That would have been better
2A. Okay. the Emperor is back. How is he back? The answer is literally "Something, something Dark Side"
2B. So the Emperor's plan is to have Rey show up and kill him in rage which will open her up to the dark side which would allow Palpatine's soul to possess her body (or something like that) Rey shows up intending to do exactly that. Why in fork's sake would you tell her that's your evil plan?? Be quiet, Let her kill you and and take over her body. Done. You win. This is also like the 3rd time you've forked yourself up with your own force lightning
3. LEIA. This one gets a pass from me. They were between a rock and a hard place. My understanding was that the plan (such as it was) was to have one of the OG cast be the lead co star of each movie - Han in TFA, Luke in TLJ and Leia in ROS. Obviously that plan went out the window and they were scrambling as how to address it. Have Leia die off screen? Say she was somewhere else and for some reason not around as all this was going down? That would have disrespected Leia and Carrie Fisher. I'd say there was no easy choice and probably did the best they could under the circumstances
4. ROSE. This does not get a pass. If you ask the filmmakers they'll say that Leia was intended to be a big part of the third movie and Rose was intended to have a much bigger part as Leia's protégée/assistant. barely any Leia means barely any Rose. Note that onscreen result of this explanation is indistinguishable from the alternate possibility of totally caving to and placating racist and sexist online trolls
5. LANDO. As much as I loved seeing Billy Dee back on screen as Lando he didn't really have much to do
6. OG Trio - This is an overall trilogy complaint. To me Star Wars is always Han, Luke and Leia. I find even the best of non OG Star Wars (Rebels, Mandalorian) lacking just a bit because of it. I'm disappointed that we never saw a scene with all three together. In fact, I wished the sequel trilogy focused on them (or at least 7), Before the Disney buyout it seemed like 80%+ of the extended universe novels focused on the three of them. I really wanted the new movies to follow suit
7. CHEWBACCA - I wasn't fooled by the scene with Rey and Ren and the ship Chewie was on. I was expecting the ship the break apart because the same exact thing happened with Luke's lightsaber the previous movie when they fought over it using the force. When the ship exploded I didn't believe that Chewie was onboard for a second. I thought there was no way they would kill the Wookie off like that
8. C3PO - This was a bit better. Taking in the nonsensical idea of programming a droid with 6 million forms of communication except one. "Why would knowing the language of the universe's greatest threat ever come in handy?" but whatever. A hard factory reset and wiping out the memory of someone who's been there since day one could have been an emotional highlight of the movie. And would have played out much better if Luke and R2 was present. And what emotion was there was wiped away with the total cop out of "I'd never let R2 back up my memory......just kidding he did it last week"
9. SITH MAP - "The city of gold is real. We have a map that will lead us straight there" "where is the map?" “It was in a safe in a corner office of one of the World Trade Center Towers" "Well, the map is forking gone then isn't it" This map is somehow intact in the somehow intact Death Star throne room? No. I will say the visuals of the Death Star wreckage was cool though
10. HAN - This I liked. I thought 100% percent that Harrison Ford was done with Star Wars. The cameo was a nice surprise, and a needed one. Ren killed Han Solo, a huge part of many people's childhood. There’s no true redemption without addressing that and forgiving that, and Han is the only one who could have made that happen
11. FINN - Also not given much to do. And very annoyed with the constant “I have to tell you something” which he ended up never telling Rey
12. REY - One thing I did like about TLJ was the idea that anyone can be a hero, that Rey was no one special. Well it turns out that she was special after all. The Emperor's granddaughter at that
13. END BATTLE - The end of TLJ the new republic is pinned down and trapped, about to be wiped out. They beg for help. and no one shows up. No one. They could have solved that problem with one line "They are jamming all transmissions, our distress SOS isn't getting through!" unless I missed it that line wasn't there so it just looked like nobody came. End of ROS everyone and their brother shows up. Seemed to be a big disconnect to me. I also don't know how the shooting schedules went but it sure seemed like Star Wars wanted to copy the Avengers return scene from Endgame. When I saw the movie in the theater I laughed out loud at the Space Horses scene
14. SKYWALKER - Rey taking the Skywalker name made no sense to me
15. ANAKIN/VADER - When the sequel trilogy was first announced it was rumored that Hayden Christenson would reprise his role in at least one of them. there was even concept art showing an anakin/vader mash up to represent him struggling with the light and dark side even after death. I was no fan of his work in the prequels and wanted no part of that rumor. Now, I think it would have been a cool idea and wished they had figured a way to work it in
Last edited:
