Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a bad movie

[seed]

1 hour ago, printz said:

Ah, so there was nothing caused by Force whatsoever in that instance? I honestly thought the Sith Dagger saved them by teleporting them aboard another deck as the ambiguously good/evil Force actions of Ren and Rey mixed up. The main characters even mentioned the Dagger soon after they thought Chewie died. But no, it's all much more mundane…

 

This, the worst part of the movie when it comes to filming.

 

It's almost like they planned on killing Chewie for good, and when they were almost done with the idea they suddenly changed their mind, especially when looking at the way the characters reacted.

[Grazza]

The whole franchise is god-awful. I can state this with confidence having seen parts of the first one (no, never made it all the way through) and trailers for too many of the others, and having heard an excess of crap about the whole stupid train-wreck.

 

I wonder what Enjay thinks about it.

[[McD] James]

Why was Palpatine scarred like that? He became misshapen because of Mace Windu, not because of genetic reasons.

[Linguica]

If I were given the job of plotting Ep 9, this is what I would have begun with.

 

Spoiler

Note I am going by the following:

• Ep 1-8 are canon and nothing else matters
• Disney insists on bringing back the Emperor as the ultimate bad guy
• Disney lets me tie in prequel elements, which they seem allergic to in general

My story would have focused on making Palpatine the ultimate villain of all 9 movies and trying to smooth it over as much as possible. In my version, Palpatine, aka Snoke, aka Darth Sidious, was also aka Darth Plagueis the Wise, who had mastery over life and death. Palpatine's monologue to Anakin in Episode 3 is obviously meant to make you ask if "Plagueis" was his master, and Sidious learned the power from him. But what if Plagueis *was* Palpatine, or an earlier persona of his or whatever? In my story Palpatine keeps the power to create life and grow it using cloning technology (tying in all the Clone Wars stuff, and giving the concept of cloning a payoff at the end of the series). As part of his long term plan to destroy the Jedi Order, he wanted a "Sith Academy" of his own - but obviously this was hard to do during the era of the Republic.

 

So instead, Palpatine created his own potential apprentices, by creating babies infused via Force magic or whatever (and who are, as a consequence, extraordinarily high in midichlorians, explaining that nonsense in Episode 1). He dumped these test tube babies on backwater planets with foster parents who were Force-suggested to accept them as their own children. The idea was that these eugenic Force-doped star children would be left to live or die by their own wits, and only the most capable and cunning among them would rise above their birth and eventually come to Palpatine's attention. In a sense, his apprentices would train themselves or die trying, and those who "graduate" are the ones who he discovers and who become Darths.

 

One of these children was named Anakin Skywalker, which is why he was a "vergence" in the Force with no known father. Palpatine "fathered" (created) him after all. Another one of these test tube babies, decades later, would be Rey, who is truly "no one" with no parents, because she was created from nothing (explaining the mirror scene in Episode 8 where it was herself stretching backward and forward to infinity).

 

The story could go any number of ways, but one of the key points is that Kylo Ren isn't visited by Luke's force ghost or by a projection of Han Solo, but by the force ghost of Anakin Skywalker who tells him about his origins and those of Rey and ties the whole thing together. It's ridiculous that they retconned his force ghost into the ending of Ep 6 but he never shows up in Eps 7-9, where one of the main characters literally worships him and does evil in his name.

 

[Skeletonpatch]

How I feel about this movie can be most concisely summed up as follows:

 

[printz]

2 hours ago, Linguica said:

Disney lets me tie in prequel elements, which they seem allergic to in general

I fully agree, the prequel trilogy elements really deserve more love, especially when they have a whole TV series (even if cartoon) in their canon and not just the widely criticized feature film trilogy. I wish that keeping it canon also meant they'd exploit it in their subsequent movies. Instead I'm tired of seeing the same motifs as in 1977-8x.

 

I find the sequel trilogy to be more symbolic and poetic than having an actual plot. Force users liberally die, resurrect, reappear as powerful ghosts, project themselves at great distances without losing the force capabilities, can form strong telepathic links which end up having real effects to their peers. It's all very blurry now.

[Solmyr]

I guess George Lucas finally got his revenge against all of those rabid fans who religiously shat on the prequel trilogy.

[FractalBeast]

7 minutes ago, Solmyr said:

I guess George Lucas finally got his revenge against all of those rabid fans who religiously shat on the prequel trilogy.

Until the day I die I will shit on the prequels.

 

All the shit that sucks about the new movies is 100x worse in the prequels.

[Solmyr]

14 minutes ago, FractalBeast said:

Until the day I die I will shit on the prequels.

You and me both. But one thing is to shit on lazy godawful movies, another is to take it to the extreme. 

 

30 minutes ago, FractalBeast said:

All the shit that sucks about the new movies is 100x worse in the prequels.

You are kind of generous, The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker were pretty close to prequel level of awfulness.

[ReaperAA]

5 hours ago, FractalBeast said:

All the shit that sucks about the new movies is 100x worse in the prequels.

 

Nope. The prequels overall may not be as good as OT but they are still overall better than the sequel trilogy. Even TFA(which is regarded as the best movie of sequel trilogy) is not that good due to it being a carbon copy of ANH.

[seed]

5 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

Nope. The prequels overall may not be as good as OT but they are still overall better than the sequel trilogy. Even TFA(which is regarded as the best movie of sequel trilogy) is not that good due to it being a carbon copy of ANH.

 

That's the spirit, let's show the prequel trilogy more love :3 .

[printz]

I think I have a better view over the prequel trilogy because I actually watched the The Clone Wars TV series, which had time to flesh out all characters. And that's why I said that a new TV series focused on the sequel's time may be good for Star Wars. I want to see more of these duck-faced stormtroopers, they seem more dangerous than the old frownfaces.

[Liberation]

On 12/26/2019 at 4:45 PM, printz said:

Ah, so there was nothing caused by Force whatsoever in that instance? I honestly thought the Sith Dagger saved them by teleporting them aboard another deck as the ambiguously good/evil Force actions of Ren and Rey mixed up. The main characters even mentioned the Dagger soon after they thought Chewie died. But no, it's all much more mundane…

 

Considering the pace of that actual scene, I could have blinked and missed something. Judging by other peoples reaction I'm pretty sure it was just.. a dodgy script bit.

 

On 12/26/2019 at 4:45 PM, printz said:

Red storm troopers? I vaguely saw one. This idea reminds me of Crusader: No Regret (which I haven't played yet but sure enough has a red armoured hero).

 

I think the same scene with them is basically in the trailers, the bit with the explosion and the red trooper landing through it with a jet pack... looked cool and gave the impression that these guys were pretty solid. Shame that got wasted really.

On 12/26/2019 at 4:45 PM, printz said:

Sorry but suddenly becoming a card carrying villain (which is the only way to suddenly turn "evil" in such a situation) is way too cliché.

 

Yeah that was seriously wishful thinking :-)

 

15 hours ago, FractalBeast said:

All the shit that sucks about the new movies is 100x worse in the prequels.

 

You might need to specify exactly what sucks as that is pretty open ended. Apart from great special effects the new films don't even have a story arc compared to the prequel trilogy and don't seem to do anything better tbh.

[Mr. Freeze]

1 minute ago, Liberation said:

You might need to specify exactly what sucks as that is pretty open ended. Apart from great special effects the new films don't even have a story arc compared to the prequel trilogy and don't seem to do anything better tbh.

 

TFA and TLJ have decent editing, unlike any prequel movie. And unlike the prequels, they have an easy-to-follow and not confusing narrative. I can't speak for TROS, but the sequel trilogy at least started on even footing. 

 

 

[hybridial]

I think we can all agree that basically the Prequel and sequel trilogies are just bad. Not necessarily bereft of any qualities but just, in the end, unable to be actually good. 

 

So here's my new hot take, Star Trek The Motion Picture is a better movie than Wrath of Khan and the original Star Wars movies. :P 

 

(I'd have said Blade Runner but anyone with a functioning brain should know that) 

[seed]

14 minutes ago, hybridial said:

I think we can all agree that basically the Prequel and sequel trilogies are just bad.

 

No we can't :p - for as long as I live (which might not actually be much longer) I will never see the prequel trilogy as even remotely bad, same for the sequel trilogy, but I will admit that both have their flaws, and the sequel trilogy ended on a low note especially when looking at the promising start.

[ReaperAA]

43 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

 

TFA and TLJ have decent editing, unlike any prequel movie. And unlike the prequels, they have an easy-to-follow and not confusing narrative. I can't speak for TROS, but the sequel trilogy at least started on even footing. 

 

What is so confusing about the prequels? I was able to understand what's happening in them even as a teenager when I first watched them.

[seed]

17 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

What is so confusing about the prequels? I was able to understand what's happening in them even as a teenager when I first watched them.

 

I'd say one of the main issues would be the fact that the key characters are not well developed and various pieces of the puzzle are missing. This is what makes watching shows such as Clone Wars kind of a necessity to better understand the events and especially the characters.

[Liberation]

1 hour ago, Mr. Freeze said:

TFA and TLJ have decent editing, unlike any prequel movie. And unlike the prequels, they have an easy-to-follow and not confusing narrative. I can't speak for TROS, but the sequel trilogy at least started on even footing. 

 

That is a fair point, although the prequels benefit from the fact that you know the end game. It's about Anakin turning into vader and the rise of the empire, which means you can just watch episode 3 and be done with it. Also means you can gloss over the bullshit easier (or at least I could).

 

 

[jazzmaster9]

I liked it better than Phantom Menace which isn't saying much...

[Wereknight]

I just saw this piece of s...pecial Olympics movie that just sums up that whole SW cinematic universe is finished and honestly? THANK GOD!!! BECAUSE THEY JUST MURDERED ANY SENSE OF LOGIC IN THIS.

 

Why does D*** lives when he supposed to be dead?!

Why one of those officers come another traitor?!

WHY LEYA STILL ALIVE?!

NOTHING MAKES SENSE WITHOUT DARTH MAUL AND DARTH SAVAGE!

[Phobus]

As seems to often be the case with this sort of topic, I've seen the film just a few hours ago and thought it was really good. Logically, that massed fleet of Star Destroyers should've been able to shoot up and trash whatever invading force came after them. Other than that, nothing really bothered me, until my brother pointed out that there was no requirement for a ground invasion force to destroy either communications tower, as they were very obviously vulnerable from the air assault of any star fighter.

 

Still, a very enjoyable film with tons of nods to the older films that I appreciated. Even the voice of Samuel Jackson (or a decent impression) briefly making an appearance was appreciated.

[NuMetalManiak]

So I've seen it. 1/10 movie for me. Spoiler dump/nitpicking below on my opinion here.

 

Spoiler

The music is the best part of the movie, hands down. The ending battle definitely screams Star Wars in true form. Some of the newer characters also felt pretty good. I felt like Jannah was interesting enough despite not being important enough for the main cast, and General Pryde seems like a good foil to Hux's character or to even Moff Tarkin. Zorii Bliss I feel should have had more importance, seeing as she's an acquaintance of Poe's, and while she does participate in the final battle and ultimately survive her role still feels flat. Gotta give Anthony Daniels credit too, considering he's been in all nine mainline movies. What a great actor.

 

So on to the negatives, and there are a lot:

 

First I have to wonder where Rey still has a blue lightsaber from. Unless it's a different one from the one in Last Jedi that got split in half I haven't the foggiest idea why she has another blue one. There's another plot point for me here. Luke had a green light saber in ROTJ, and it was shown in flashbacks in TLJ, but never was used beyond that. It was said later on that that blue one was Luke's, so did he make another blue one beforehand? Oh and Leia also was a Jedi too at some point? Since when? She also had a blue lightsaber but never really used it at all.

 

All the extra puppets of Snoke are fucking ridiculous. They're so ridiculous they don't even get mentioned for the rest of the movie after they are shown.

 

As Ling said, Leia's scenes are completely bothersome. I said it in the Last Jedi thread about two years ago, but they would have had to give her an offscreen death considering Carrie's dead, and to be quite honest it would have been for the best. But no, we get unused lines from TFA/TLJ that are way too easy to take out of context. And then her actual death scene in the movie was obviously rushed and made absolutely no sense.

 

A lot of familiar characters in this movie don't have great scenes either. Finn, Poe, 3PO, and Chewie are basically relegated into a group with Rey, and Rose may have well just not have been in the movie because she has next to no importance this time around. I feel like Jannah was there to replace her in this movie, but I liked Jannah's personality a lot more.

 

Much of the plot is basically the five main good guys shown above tracking stuff down, then Rey goes off on her own, shit happens, Finn screaming "REY!", and more shit happening. Repeat three or four more times.

 

Finn can use the Force?

 

Palpatine is OP as fuck and this isn't okay. He can somehow summon a complete armada of Star Destroyers in seconds? And then later on he sucks out Ben and Rey's energy to heal himself (which is cool in a way at least), but he also can use his Force Lightning to somehow wipe out almost the entire Resistance fleet. So at no point in any of the previous films does Palpatine do this and immediately conquer the galaxy. I'm left wondering why.

 

There are literally two scenes in the movie that take after the two memorable scenes in Avengers: Endgame. I'm not even gonna spoil what they are, they are near the end and very easy to spot.

 

Finally I gotta admit, all the lightning and shit on Exegol gets really annoying after awhile.

 

It's so weird watching JJ Abrams direct TFA in an interesting way, Rian Johnson sort of screwing with the previous movie's main plot in TLJ, and then JJ comes back and screws with THAT a lot more.

 

Edited December 28, 2019 by NuMetalManiak

[Chezza]

Ok I watched the film. Yeah there is not much to add other than my opinion. I didn't like it.

 

Although I'm glad there is finally justification to Reys natural uber powers.

[Redneckerz]

Since my 2 cents are as much worth as everyone else (Namely, 2 cents) ill submit some thoughts aswell, since i saw it last night.

 

The Rise of Skywalker does not know what it wants to be.

 

The most annoying kind of movie (in my eyes) is a movie that has troubles figuring out what it wants to be. Fortunately, in my experience, not many big blockbusters suffer this faith, but those that do, are the ones i do not remember fondly. The last Harry Potter and Twilight movies come to mind. If a movie is most of the time crap, then its crap. If its most of the time good, then its good.

 

The Rise of Skywalker is unfortunately the former. Its 33% okayish, 33% pure garbage and 33% pretty epic. This results in a movie that 100% does not know what it actually wants.

 

Part 1, before the break:

 

I am not going to drop spoilers for those who want to see it, but speaking in general, the okayish parts were comparable to The Last Jedi's. If that was not to your liking, you can easily put that as a con point, then you would forget the real issues up ahead. First part before the break is in my eyes the okayish part, so the first hour or so.

 

Be prepared however that the movie up to this point does a lot of skipping: At times they are amazed that a new thing is introduced as they never have seen it before, and one scene later it has lost all its value. The same goes for main characters taking a hike multiple times in the movie: It isn't established why this is done, nor is there much backdrop to it, leading to quite a few scenes feel unneeded for the development of the global narrative. This, along with the new thing scenes, is done quite often, and it lacks the kind of depth that you would expect with a movie like this.

 

If you could muster The Last Jedi as a whole, then Rise of Skywalker's first hour is pretty much that, and visually bombastic, which is a plus.

 

Part 2, after the break:

 

Returning to the movie after the break, its where the title takes a deep dive into negativity. There are plottwists introduced that make honestly very little sense, even compared to The Last Jedi which had quite a few bizarre tales aswell. It is where i personally felt the ball was dropped. There are certain scenes that are very important, but like the first part, it waves by like it has no relevance, and it ventures in the nonsensical. It is this part where i feel most of the critique towards The Rise of Skywalker can be directed: It is supposed to end a saga and put an end on the questions people have had over the years. Instead, whilst it answers a few questions, it also opens several new ones and leaves them hanging in suspense - For no approachable reasons.

 

There are also two moments i would even describe as amateurish - One particular scene contains no sound effects whatsoever, whilst the mood of the scene is very serious. Without any soundeffects, the scene becomes slapstick in nature. Another issue was one of continuity - In one scene, Rey has her cap off  her head in a fight, but in the next shot, her cap is suddenly on again. This is depicted rather visually, so its hard to miss these. Its stuff like this that just further cements the impression that this part is just geniunely bad.

 

Part 3: The finishing moments:

 

Fortunately, the movie is not all terrible, but its partially why i geniunely hate schizo movies that do not know what they want to be. As we venture in the last 30-60 mins, the movie does open up and delivers a rather epic depiction of the last stand as it is written in PR. Here, Rise of Skywalker throws you back to earlier times, where epic space battles and personal vendetta's finally come and meet. It is here where the movie most shines and it also makes you question why the previous 66% was not like this. The finale parts of the movie are marred with strong visual direction and proper pacing. There are still fuck ups here and there that aren't explained as per the first part of the movie, but the finale, well, it works. The closing shot might not be the most original, but i felt it was rather respectfully done.

 

Conclusion:

 

Taken as a standalone movie, The Rise of Skywalker gets a pass, albeit barely. In the grade of 5.5 to 6 on a scale of 10. But if we have to judge this movie as a ''finisher'' movie (Because that's what this is) then i am going to go ahead and say its one of the worser endings of a long running franchise and thus a 4 or less. To put it in comparison for another big blockbuster finisher: Avengers: Endgame was basically a desert kind of movie after Infinity War, but is far, far better as a closing chapter than Rise of Skywalker.

 

As a finisher movie, The Rise of Skywalker is likely one of the bigger disappointments as we depart this decade. A unworthy end to perhaps one of, if not the biggest movie franchise of the past 100 years.

 

PS: Part of the bizarre was that a group in the audience ended up clapping after the credits rolled by. I didn't detect any sarcasm in that, so it seems that certain people geniunely liked this movie to the point where you clap for it. Note: Where i come from, people do not clap for a movie if they think it is good, so take that as you will.

 

On 12/21/2019 at 5:32 AM, Mr. Freeze said:

oh man where to begi

 

I could go on and on and on. What a dumb way to end Star Wars. 

I wonder why this isn't spoilered, because well, spoilers. The movie not being great should be no reason not to spoiler this stuff for those who want to enjoy it.

 

Its partially why i didn't click on this thread before seeing the movie because i wagered someone would be ''that user''. Intuition 100, apparently.

[Walter confetti]

Watched it this afternoon, is not that horrible like i read, actually i quite enjoyed it, but it could be done better especially thinking this is the "last chapter of all Star Wars franchise"...

Like lots of things will need a better answer than my extremely limited fantasies and theories would answer to myself, like:

 

Spoiler

How Palpatine still be alive? He is a clone? He's immortal thanks to Sith dark powers?

 

And why in the start there's a fragment of his greeting speech to Kylo Ren that have a sample of the iconic Darth Vader breathe?

 

Why Kylo rebuild his mask?

 

Who is the woman that Rey fights in the destroyed Death Star? Her mother spirit? Rey dark side (like is the shadow boss version of her? Is this become Double Dragon or Zelda 2 all of sudden?) And how Kylo Ren reached her in the dark star without any possibility to be in contact with her like the other times in the movie?

 

Also, i don't truly remember that much The last Jedi, but isn't the last Death Star completely destroyed? How can this be possible? There is more Death Stars created around the universe?

 

Why Han Solo ghost appears to Kylo like a normal man instead of a light spirit? Because he isn't a Jedi?

 

Is Rey at the end of the movie have all the force of Jedis... and Siths too? Palpatine, in the final epic battle with her and Kylo in the second part, he isn't said that he'll give to her all the powers of the dark side if he kills him with hatred? Ok, she isn't defeat him with hatred, but it could not be possible that she had even some little dark powers from her grandpa (lol, grandpa Palpatine. Yeah it sounds silly)and all the Siths, as it been showed early in the movie at the fake ChewBecca death scene?

 

[Doomkid]

So, this is only tangentially related but I just re-watched The Phantom Menace in full. The last time I watched it I was about 10 years old and I thought it was very boring, but I still hear people talking about it, so I thought perhaps my kid brain just didn't quite get it.

 

Nope. It's even worse than I remembered. Frankly, I am stunned that I made it through alive without facepalming so hard that I juiced my brain. What a piece of crap!

 

When mentioning this film, the first thing most critics like to dive into is the low-hanging fruit. I mean Jar Jar of course. He's a fucking nuisance. A very dumb character who exists solely for failed attempts at slapstick humor and 'cutesy' humor. The "how wooed!" joke fell flat the first time and somehow got flatter with each double-dipping. Yikes.

 

Jar Jar was far from being the worst thing about this movie though, imo. If It was an otherwise good movie, Jar Jar would just be a negligible blemish.

 

One thing any decent "good VS evil" story needs is a compelling villain. You won't find one here, unfortunately. Darth Maul is the antithesis of a compelling villain. He has literally zero character development which makes him fall completely flat as an enemy. Sure, his visual design is striking, but that's where it begins and ends. There are arcade games from the early 80's featuring villains with more fleshed out backstories and relatable motivations. As a movie watcher I'm supposed to care at least a little bit about whether or not the villain dies, right? How can I possibly care when I'm given nothing of substance to latch onto?

 

Another thing people harp on about is that pod racing scene.. which is stretched out waaaaaaaaaaay longer than necessary. Whatever, it's meant to be a CGI spectacle. It doesn't provide me personally with any sense of tension or excitement.. but whatever. Yeah, it sucks ass and is totally boring, but like Jar Jar, I would have let it pass if it was contained in an otherwise decent film.

 

The worst thing about this movie for me by a country mile has to be Anakin! Holy. Fucking. SHIT this kid actor is goddamn unbearably awful.

 

This goes beyond wooden acting. It's as if this kid had never acted in his entire life to this point and they just plucked him off the street. There were better kid actors in the plays students would put on at my elementary school. Every kid actor I've ever seen on those cheesy Disney channel shows deserved a goddamn Oscar compared to this kid. Each and every line in the entire film that he delivers is flat. He is a terrible read, personified.

 

Now, I understand the actor was just a kid, but like I said, that is no excuse. Macaulay Culkin had more acting talent in his pinkie toe at this age. I honestly couldn't get past it while watching the movie.

 

This little dork is supposed to be Darth fucking Vader as a kid? I mean, it's fair enough that he came from a somewhat unassuming background, but he's just such a cheesy little "leave it to Beaver" type that it's damn near impossible for me to imagine him turning into one of the most famous villains in film history. What a goddamn terrible backstory. I mean, come the fuck on. This little kid is as unassuming and generic as they come - being forced to imagine that kid Vader had less-than-zero charisma and balls is painful, because it simply does not add up. He doesn't even have a mouth on him, no hints of snark, no hints of attitude, he doesn't have any indicators whatsoever of a future villain. That's just shitty character development, bad writing and bad casting coming together for a whirlwind of underwhelming bullshit, as far as I'm concerned. It's like a guaranteed formula for how to make your audience not invested.

 

If people are unironically arguing that this film is 'middle of the road' by modern Star Wars standards, then god damn have I dodged a bullet by never becoming a superfan of Star Wars. I like the original trilogy well enough and love the Star Wars video games I've played, so I went in really wanting to like this thing, but couldn't force myself to.

 

It was roundly awful for anyone not bitten by the Star Wars superfan bug.

[VanaheimRanger]

7 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

It was roundly awful for anyone not bitten by the Star Wars superfan bug.

The most awful part was that they felt the need to give the Force a scientific explanation.  Midichlorians?  Really?  No...It's fucking space magic!

[Doomkid]

Just another awful plot point I forgot to acknowledge. As I understand it, the force is meant to be a spiritual thing - there are allusions to classic elements of religion all throughout Star Wars, so why bother with the scientific explanation? It's not only contrary to the tone of the entire concept of the force, but totally unnecessary anyway. It's not like people were clamoring for a scientific explanation, it was taken for granted that the force was a spiritual/religious thing 'beyond our comprehension'. Just one more way that it missed the mark!

[SaladBadger]

my favorite part of the midichlorians thing though is that it's not really an explanation. how do the midichlorians do the space magic? it basically did nothing but explain why some people can use space magic and why some couldn't, i guess, and this is something they felt people needed to know?

 

ah, anakin. I love how you can ruin a movie entirely by skipping all the training and getting stronger, and having a little fuck get in a space ship, do some spinning, because that's a nice trick, and somehow save the day without any actual skill whatsoever. amazing. all this manages to do is make the character even more fucking unbearable and ruin basically any dramatic buildup whatsoever. Amazing.

 

I have no idea whatsoever why anyone would say Rise of Skywalker makes the prequel trilogy look good.