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dgcatanisiri · 3 years

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I just will never get past the fact that The Last Jedi wants the audience to buy in to the idea that Kylo Ren is redeemable. Like, The Rise of Skywalker is also guilty of this issue, in some ways to a greater degree, but it’s very clearly built off of the portrayal within The Last Jedi.

Like... First of all, the difference of Kylo Ren and Anakin Skywalker comes down to what motivated them in the first place - Anakin’s course to his fall came from him being put through an emotional wringer that ultimately just made him crack and surrender to Palpatine. Moreover, that was explicitly played as a “point of no return” for him, that while Luke saw him as redeemed, and he got the Force ghost treatment, the legacy of Anakin Skywalker was still overshadowed by Darth Vader. And, even before his fall, Anakin was a child taken from slavery and put into a system of strict adherence to a certain code that demanded he refer to his superiors as “master,” so slavery in function, if not in form, when viewed from the eyes of someone who all he had known to that point was slavery. To Anakin, turning his fate over to others was how it was done, because he had no frame of reference otherwise, so, when he knows the Jedi won’t take him back after Mace Windu’s death, he turns his fate over to Palpatine - Anakin never knew a life where he was in control of his destiny.

Kylo, on the other hand, pretty much got to be as privileged as one could possibly be. Son of heroes, intimately connected to these people and this family, his spot in Luke’s attempts at rebuilding the Jedi assured, having all the options available to him... And he STILL makes the active choice to join up with a fascist order, built out of the remnants of the organization that his entire extended family fought to destroy, and destroy the academy, seemingly on the basis of “my uncle thought about killing me for what I might do, so I’m gonna prove that he should have gone through with it!”

What about that says even “tragic villain”? Like, Anakin’s fall is a tragedy because it could have been prevented had anyone - Anakin or those around him - veered from that course. Kylo is just a privileged rich kid who, once he has to face consequences, decides instead to burn down the galaxy so that he gets to be the one on top.

But TLJ decides that HE needs to be the leading man of the trilogy. That HE is the important figure of the Skywalker line that we should be watching and paying attention to. Meanwhile, TLJ throws Finn, who was the leading man of TFA and explicitly a parallel to Kylo Ren, completely under the bus, what with the whole Canto Bight sequence being completely disposable in terms of the plot, when it is already the C-plot of the movie.

And just... That REALLY grates when you realize that TFA? It HINGED on Finn and his actions. If Finn had not decided in the opening minutes of the movie to leave the First Order, breaking from the lifetime of indoctrination that he had gone through, then there would BE. NO. TRILOGY. Poe would have remained a First Order captive, tortured and eventually killed by Kylo, the First Order would have gone to the junkyard on Jakku and taken BB-8, with no concern about Rey being complete collateral damage in the process, Starkiller would have remained intact, and the map would have fallen in to Kylo Ren’s hands.

Also, again, hammering the point of Finn being paralleled to Kylo - the order to fire that Finn refuses to follow is issued BY Kylo.

Finn and Kylo should have been the central conflict of the trilogy. That’s not a slam on Rey, just that... All the real connection between her and Kylo? It comes from TLJ emphasizing that the two of them have a connection, and not due to the framing of the story of TFA. Finn HAD everything in TFA that TLJ gives Rey to make her seem a counterpoint to Kylo - Finn came from nothing, being a rank and file stormtrooper, versus Kylo as both the enforcer of the First Order AND the son of Leia and Han. The order Kylo gave to kill the innocent village was the one that Finn disobeyed. Finn chose to defect when Kylo chose the First Order. These parallels were all over TFA, and unceremoniously dumped in TLJ, so that it could build up the “connection” between Rey and Kylo.

And this “connection” between Rey and Kylo basically amounted to “he tortured her, they fought over the lightsaber, and now TRUE LOVE.” Like, why does Rey even CARE about trying to bring Kylo back to the light? The guy tortured her, killed Han - her mentor and his father - and then seriously injured the first person in her life who came back for her. Hell, for that matter, why does she even think he’s ALIVE? The last time she saw him, she’d left him for dead on Starkiller, the planet-sized superweapon that EXPLODED.

TLJ takes all of Finn’s relevance to the overall narrative of the sequel trilogy and just gives it to Rey, offering him nothing of real value to replace it. I honestly feel like TRoS TRIES (emphasis - “tries,” and I don’t want to hear a single Yoda quote) to give him SOMETHING of value, both with Finn trying to bring up being Force sensitive and Jannah and the defected stormtroopers the gang meets on Kef Bir, but that’s too little too late, with just not enough TIME, because TRoS basically has to build a finale that had no set up in the prior movie.

TLJ is just not interested in the story begun by TFA, swerving abruptly to tell some other story. TRoS is heavily flawed, but it’s honestly constrained by the fact that it had to take two stories that, by the decision of TLJ to go in its own direction, had very little connective tissue.

Which, y’know... Seems like a problem when we’re talking about movie two of a trilogy and movie eight of a saga.

#dg rants #the last jedi critical #anti the last jedi

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eternalthenas · 4 years

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what bothers me the most about tros and what i’m most unable to accept is how jj managed to destroy and disrespect EVERY single character. even the ones who technically had “happy endings”🤡

ben - i feel like this one doesn’t even need to be said, but i’ll say it anyways. after years of emotional abuse from palpatine, it’s disheartening to see that jj gave no explanation as to why palpatine wanted ben (personal vendetta against the skywalkers i guess??) when it semed like he only needed rey AND that ben never really triumphed over palpatine in any way. it hurts to know that leia straight up had a vision about her son’s death but that she still seemingly gave up on him despite knowing that he was struggling and that she sent him off to train to be jedi with a luke, when apparently she could’ve done that herself. it’s disheartening that luke who believed even vader could be turned back to the light also gave up on his nephew, when he was just a boy no less. it’s disheartening that although he was the last skywalker (a fact only palpatine acknowledged!), none of his family nor his namesake reached out to help him. instead of telling the last skywalker to rise, they ignored him (as they had apparently done his whole life) in favor of a palpatine. ok. even though as the last skywalker, he really should’ve been the one to have the final kill against palpatine since it was HIS family that palpatine destroyed, he doesn’t. he’s motionless in a pit for the whole final battle. ok. that will never not leave a bad taste in my mouth. his whole family (except for han apparently i love him) gave up on him and clearly so did the writers. as a fan of the skywalkers and their story, this isn’t the ending i wanted for them. especially when luke and leia and han had given their lives to see him turn to the light. and for what? so he could be used as a plot device to conveniently bring rey back to life and then promptly die (even though they’re a force dryad and, according to jj’s own fucking canon, supposedly one) without any fanfare, emotional reaction whatsoever, or later mention? wtf? it’s disrespectful not only to ben solo, who is easily the best character in the sequel trilogy and one of the best characters in ALL of star wars, but it’s disrespectful to the entire skywalker line!! (and to adam driver, who deserved so much better than this shit. go get that oscar)

rey - by making her a palpatine, jj completely disregarded her arc. whatever your opinions about rey nobody, once they went with it, they never should’ve retconned it and turned her into a legacy character in the final film. it felt cheap. in my theater, there was no cheering about this reveal. because jj had never properly set it up and he didn’t even bother to reveal it an impactful way. but what’s most annoying about rey suddenly being a legacy character is that it completely disregards the fact that she was powerful on her OWN, without any famous blood making her that way. furthermore, by turning her into the chosen one and giving her the entire skywalker legacy (which felt like a slap in the face to the skywalkers imo), she did turn into a mary sue, one of the biggest complaints about her since day 1. she was overpowered, morally perfect, and never faced any failure. i struggled to root for her as the “hero” because i felt everything was handed to her on a silver platter. so not only did jj turn her into a mary sue and take her power away from her by turning her into a legacy, but he also destroyed the fact that her whole arc had been “seeking belonging” and a family. rather than having her final scenes be with her new found family, she ends the movie with her canon soulmate dead and no one but a droid by her side on a desert planet of all places. to add further insult to injury, she also disregards her family name even though they supposedly loved her and sacrificed themselves for her (despite the fact that they sold her but whatever) in favor of a last name of a guy she had barely known. she had more emotional connection to han or leia, but she didn’t take their last name. she took luke’s, the guy who had refused to teach her and who she had come to view in a more negative light towards the end of tlj. in this house i will not EVER be calling her rey sky- i can’t even say it🤢

finn - in all honestly, they screwed finn’s character arc in episode 1 when jj turned him into a lovesick sidekick who served as comedic relief. as a deserted stormtrooper, he could’ve had the most interesting storylines. and he should have. but apparently the writers forgot about him. although they mention his past BRIEFLY, it’s paid no real weight or attention. instead, he spends the whole movie once again trying to (possibly) confess his feeling for rey. and for what? probably just to bait finnrey fans and prove the character’s heterosexuality bc it goes absolutely nowhere. although we find out he’s force sensitive, that too is glossed over and has no lasting effect. he’s also made co general, which okay cool, but then he does nothing?? so while finn could have and should have been a main character with an interesting storyline, they turn him into your average run of the mill action hero with an occasional quip. john boyega, sweetie, i’m so sorry (but i guess that’s kind of what he wanted since he hated tlj, the only movie where he actually had a main role with any character growth?? idk)

poe - it’s once again evident that they originally intended to kill off poe bc he has no arc whatsoever. he gets a little backstory as a drug smuggler now ig, which really came out of left field considering the already established canon with his past as a pilot. he’s more of the same in this movie, except more unlikable than usual (imo). he’s still stubborn, occasionally funny, but mostly he just bickers with rey, which isn’t funny, at all necessary, and doesn’t add anything to the “trio’s” dynamic. he’s at his best when he’s with finn but then, of course, jj has to remind us of how straight he is every single scene so. another character like finn who could have been great, but with the lazy writing, he has no arc, no backstory, no character growth, so he’s just mediocrity personified and just kind of there.

zorii & jannah - both could’ve been awesome. both are just there for a brief introduction and to help the heroes with maybe one thing and that’s it. both deserved better.

the skywalkers - yeah jj really said a big fuck you to luke, leia, and anakin most of all. the WORST part of tros is the fact that it basically makes the previous six episodes useless. anakin’s redemption arc? what does it matter now? he didn’t successfully bring balance to the force. he didn’t successfully kill palpatine. and now his entire bloodline is dead. ok cool😎 thank you jj!!!! what a hopeful end to the skywalker saga!!!! i love seeing that anakin failed and wasn’t REALLY the chosen one. i love that luke and leia gave their legacy to a descendant of the guy who tried to tear apart and terrorized their family. that’s really nice. i love that anakin NEVER reached out to help his grandson who struggled with the dark just like he did. but that he came in just in time to tell palp’s granddaughter to rise😍 really hopeful, lovely ending. thanks again jj! thanks for making leia seem like a bad mother who sees visions about her son but just throws in the towel and doesn’t really try to help him?? wtf??? not my princess leia. also tros luke? truly the worst luke. i really have no other words, i’m just disappointed. jj let me down in every single way possible and ones i didn’t even realize he could.

palpatine - jj also managed to ruin the best star wars villain, a feat i didn’t even think possible. palpatine had always seemed scary to me because of his inhuman qualities. but in this one, he’s back with no explanation whatsoever. he just is. he somehow managed to survive (ok🙄) and furthermore he had a kid. what in the fuck? jj clearly read harry potter and the cursed child, but he clearly also forgot to read the reviews. NOBODY LIKES IT WHEN THE PREVIOUSLY UNTOUCHABLE/SCARY VILLAIN HAS A KID OUT OF NOWHERE. NOBODY. i seriously spent the entire movie wondering who the heck would sleep with him? that’s it. he didn’t seem menacing or at all like a threat. this movie genuinely had no stakes whatsoever (that’s why ben’s death feels so out of left field bc literally for what?! but i digress) also the final “fight” where rey kills him??? very lame. he supposedly survived all those years to be taken out like that?? no thank you, i’d like a refund.

in conclusion, thank you to jj for ruining my favorite franchise by killing off every last one of my favorite characters, destroying the skywalker legacy (& killing them off), ruining seriously every character, and leaving me with despair!!! while i’ll continue to watch star wars without including episode 9, it sucks that some of my joy is zapped from my favorite series. because this is how future generations will know star wars. with this shitty ending. and any future movies will have this canon. and that really fricking sucks. thanks, i hate it.

anyways feel free to message if you’re also in the depths of despair about how this all ended!! bc the more i think about it, the sadder/angrier i get.

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frumfrumfroo · 4 years

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Remember how Ben was a metaphor for struggling children rebelling against parents and moving from adolescence to adulthood and trying to find their way? Guess the message was unless you were the perfect child, you didn't deserve to be with your family ever.

I honestly, really and truly thought this meant they would never dream of doing this to him. The two posts before I had to admit the leaks were true are literally me going on about what fucking scumbags they’d have to be to do this. To sit in interviews and say that shit, to encourage vulnerable people and kids to identify with him, to go even harder ramping up to this film underscoring he was a child and victim and in need of help he never received.

I thought being the last Skywalker and being knowingly, intentionally and decisively a touchstone for lost children whom they seemed to invest so much in creating, for whom they’d made the stakes so high meant there was no way in fuck they could ever, ever do this. They couldn’t possibly mean to treat iconic characters like this, to kill off the entire original cast for nothing, to destroy their happiness and victory for nothing; they couldn’t possibly be so callous with something millions of people care about?

They HAVE TO KNOW making this already sympathetic character more and more and more relatable and loveable and vulnerable while telling a story which makes him above all a victim of the Skywalker legacy who has never once since conception had a chance to be his own person because of it and then saying he’s unworthy to carry it was a fucking HORRIFYING take. They said that’s a lonely little boy whose parents failed him who is trying his best to find any ANY sense of safety in the world by becoming what they’ve all told him he was all his life. Someone so desperate to give love, his compassion is spilling out all over the place even when he’s wrapped himself up in graveclothes and a machine-like mask.

They wrote him as coming of age and they had him fall in love with a similar lonely young soul and they told us this was a fairy tale about hope. They made the culmination and healing of the legacy of Star Wars and the resolution of he new ST protagonist’s arc the same thing- everything is pushing towards this perfect capstone. You can deliver everything and actually add something genuinely meaningful and significant to this epic saga, make it richer and more complete. They told us this was about hope, about a real ending, about everything SW was ever about, about a myth for kids that would help us understand our own comings of age.

And JJ fuckface Abrams sat in an interview and said this on 13 December 2019

The Skywalker Saga is and has always been a family story. But I do think that complexity, the question of if the son of Han & Leia can be turned to the dark side can’t any of us, what is it to be the kid of these heroes.

Like the basic lack of fucking decency, the disregard for a beloved cultural institution, the message of ‘hope you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps children because if you can’t you don’t deserve love and if you can’t get your shit together without any love then you deserve to die!’ Knowing what he’s saying. He knows.

In the franchise which asked you to love Darth fucking Vader unconditionally and made ZERO apologies for it because anyone can be saved and everyone is deserving of compassion. I genuinely… I just genuinely… how dare they.

#trosspoilers #ben solo #he's an abuse victim #that's not even a metaphor or an interpretation #it's just text #he never had a fucking chance #and the thesis of this fucking film is that no one should care about him #because he was damaged by it #because his parents bad parenting fucked him up #they should get a better kid #they all die for him and it still manages to convey that he doesn't matter #STAGGERING #Last Skywalker Last Solo Prince of Dust and Ashes #thrown in a pit for being born his mother's son and left to climb out of it by himself while his family helps someone else #a metaphor for his whole fucking life #and then he gets to fucking die #and NO ONE MOURNS HIM #NO ONE CARES #we have the Good Child now

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writingstruggles · 4 years

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Ben Solo/Kylo Ren: a character analysis

OK, first things first: THIS ISN’T A STAN OR ANTI POST. This is a character study, and if you can’t handle this character getting impartial concrit, just don’t read. If, however, you don’t agree with some of the points I’m going to make and want to have a healthy discussion about it, then I’m all ears. I don’t think my opinion is the only valid one, so feel free to try and change my mind.

And second things second: I tried so hard to love the sequel trilogy, but when it became clear after TROS that the studio had no plan other than making money, it became very difficult. I’m aware that the main problem for all the characters is the lack of general planing in this whole mess of trilogy, so keep this always in mind while reading this post: the first problem of this character was that the studio didn’t even know what to do with him.

1. Does Ben Solo becoming Kylo Ren make sense?

I checked the comics to get his background better. He had a happy childhood traveling a lot with Han and Leia, but when she discovered about the First Order, she sent him to train with Luke while Han and Chewie ran undercover missions for her. This is important: up to this point, he had a good relationship with his family, even if he was already being pulled by the dark side of the Force. It was during his adolescence that he started to be really seduced by Snoke, hearing the voice he thought belonged to Darth Vader. After the Luke incident, he did explode the cabin and thought he had killed his uncle, but he was not the one who killed all the other students and destroyed the temple: that was Snoke’s thing. He did kill some of his fellow Jedi apprentices later on, though. So, his turning points were Luke’s treason and Snoke’s coordinated abduction. And I would like to point out: the Sith training involves torture and brainwashing, so the first wrong impression I would like to correct about this character is that he was not simply a dick and revolted teen who ran away to join a cult.

BUT, there are some huge problems here. The first one is that when you watch the movies, you don’t learn anything about that aside from Luke’s part. In the way he’s presented in TFA, he’s Leia and Han’s son who betrayed his family, destroyed his uncles’ dream and joined the dark side for no reason. OF COURSE half of the audience wouldn’t like him. That wouldn’t be a problem if they just wanted him to be a villain like Darth Vader was, but it’s very clear that there was a plan (at least for one director) to make him a supposedly redeemable character. And how can we sympathize with his character like that? Even after we get to know what Luke almost did, the next question is simple: ok, so why he didn’t go back to Han and Leia?

And here is the second huge problem: we learned that after Ben leaves Yavin IV, Luke vanished, and Han and Leia broke up and went back to smuggling/leading a rebellion. And I can’t stress this enough, this doesn’t make any sense. The sequel trilogy killed Luke, Han, and Leia’s characters. These three characters that we have known for years would never, ever, had abandoned Ben Solo. Leia F*cking Organa and Han shot-first Solo would have brought their son back or die trying. Luke Skywalker is not a coward, he wouldn’t go into hiding and abandoned his only sister to clean up his mess during another war, let alone close himself to the Force, knowing full well he wouldn’t be able to feel if she was in danger. Just remember Han risking his life to save Luke in Hoth; or Leia leaving the rebellion to rescue Han from Jabba; or Luke straight-up disobeying ghost Obi-Wan and ghost Yoda to save Han and Leia, even if that costed the war. They were older and different, for sure, but we are talking about the quintessential things, the things that make these beloved characters themselves.

(THIS ^^. This right here is the spirit of Star Wars)

So no, in the way it was done in the movies, Ben Solo becoming Kylo Ren doesn’t make sense to the audience, and that’s a huge problem. A friend of mine suggested once that instead of being a rip-off of ANH, TFA should have been a movie about the beginning of the First Order (because after we defeat the Empire on episode VI, episode VII starting with ANOTHER all-powerful evil government already dominating the galaxy and exploding planets just throws away all the previous movies’ efforts) and about how Ben Solo becomes Kylo Ren. Just imagine if Rey, Finn and Poe had interacted with Ben Solo before he becomes evil: the stakes would have been so much higher, and it could have been well done. It would have made this character more human and likable.

2. Kylo Ren’s motivations: what does he want?

If the OT was about hope, I think we can agree that the ST’s themes are legacy and belonging. Having their protagonists, Rey and Ben/Kylo representing two apposite sides of those things was one of the best ideas for the new saga. Rey looks for belonging in the past she doesn’t know, while Kylo wants to abandon Ben Solo’s past and find his place in his future as Kylo Ren.

In that sense, his character arc was somehow solid. In TFA, it’s clear he’s still struggling with the dark side and feels the temptation of the light: he loses control easily, and he’s not doing anything unless Snoke orders him to. Ok, but why? Why is he clinging to Darth Vader’s ideals and staying in the sith path? Basically because he thinks it’s too late, and he has no other options. Which brings us back to the problem with Han and Leia: his parents didn’t go after him, they chose to go back to their old lives – of course he would think there’s no going back for him now. “But he is an adult man and could make his own decisions.” It’s a fair point, but again: sith training corrupts you and even if he had escaped, the only thing that would happen would be Snoke finding him again. It’s kinda like leaving an addiction: you supposedly can do it by yourself, but it is so much easier if you have help. Not a simple promise or offer, but actual, constant, and present help. I can not stress this enough, but I insist that one of the main problems with the sequel trilogy was not explaining in a satisfactory way HOW and WHY he turned to the dark side and stayed there.

3. Han Solo

Okay, I will admit: maybe my opinion on this specific topic is biased, because Han Solo is my favorite SW character. You may call me out as a fangirl if you don’t agree, but my point is: making Kylo Ren kill Han Solo was a bad idea. They basically killed the character for half of the audience, with zero chance of redemption.

It’s because it’s fratricide. Unless your father is Satan, the Emperor, or someone as equally villainous, fratricide is just that bad. It’s not easy to redeem a character who commits murder, but one that kills his own father? Who happens to be one of the good guys? And one of the most iconic and beloved characters in the franchise? There were other options to give Kylo Ren a tipping point, a conflicted moment that didn’t involve killing Han Solo. But they did, and he killed him. And now he’s no longer a villain we can sympathize with: now we think he’s a monster.

4. His interactions with Rey in TLJ

(I’m not wearing shipper goggles for this. I don’t even own shipper goggles when we are talking about Star Wars.)

Kylo Ren is conflicted after killing Han Solo, (and I will make a small pause here to reinforce how good Adam Driver’s acting was. He’s the only responsible for all the likable parts of Kylo Ren, especially in this movie). Kylo is once again unstable and Snoke is displeased with him, and for a moment we think he finally turned completely to the dark side, until he pauses before shooting Leia’s ship.

The force bond was the most interesting part of the movie. I don’t agree that he used it to manipulate Rey: if anything, he was completely harsh and blunt and kind of a dick to her, but he didn’t lie. He told her things how he saw it, with so much conviction that she started to see his side of the story. And since she was probably the first person in years that actually listened to him, his decision of murdering Snoke and inviting her to join the dark side makes very much sense.

We are talking about motivations and his are simple: let the past die, forge a new path. When he kills Snoke and no longer has a master, he only has one option: to become the master. That’s why he takes over the FO, and wants Rey to be his apprentice. Does the character suffer from sith-tunnel-vision? Definitely. But it makes sense. His decision-making is not overly complicated: he feels alone, and he wants a purpose: he decides that the solution for both is Rey joining him in the dark side. When she refuses, he still has one purpose: the FO.

This is, however, the point where he turns his back to the light completely: on Crait, he orders the FO to explode the Rebel Base and kill everyone, knowing full well his mother was in there. He orders them to exploded the Falcon out of the sky, once again knowing that Chewie and Rey are on board. When facing Luke, he repeats that he will kill Rey and the rebels. His transition from conflicted sith apprentice to the new villain of the franchise was actually well done.

And exactly because of that, the next topic pisses me off so much.

5. The continuity problem between episodes VIII and IX

Introducing Palpatine here was bad for so many reasons: backtracking Rey’s arc, making us think about Palps’ sex life, insisting on beating a literal dead horse when there were new things to explore, etc etc. And it was also bad for Kylo Ren’ arc. As I said before, the way they finished episode VIII, everything pointed to Kylo becoming the final evil Rey would have to face, and that would have been awesome. We didn’t need Palps, or ANOTHER all-powerful evil army ready to conquer the galaxy with exploding-planets-tech (seriously, is Alderaan a joke to you, Disn*y?).

But, in the third movie, they went back and decided they didn’t want Kylo Ren to be the ultimate villain anymore. They wanted him to be redeemed. And that’s not bad per se, but an actual redemption arc needs to be planned, and I think we can all agree, there was no planning in the sequels. And again, FRATRICIDE. So they introduced an old, more powerful evil to make Kylo Ren less evil and less of a threat in comparison. And evil so definitive, and with such a bullshit connection to Rey, that it makes Kylo reconsider his previous promises of killing the last jedi and going back to the plan of making her turn.

And so, his character spends the movie going after Rey, to tell her the bullshit truth about her parents, to convince her to join him. At least his arc is still somehow solid, because once he’s decided on his path, he doesn’t lose control like in the previous movies, and his body language is more firm and lethal. Which, honestly, thanks Adam Driver, he knew the character way better than the director at this point.

He finally comes back to the light when Leia dies. Although it was rushed, I agree that, at that point, it was literally the only thing that could have made him turn. Rey reminding him that he wouldn’t be alone if he hadn’t chosen the dark side helped, too. It was clear that the moment with Han Solo was supposed to be with Leia, but I’m really glad Harrison Ford agreed to come back to fill in the role for his old friend.

6. Ben Solo

Okay, there’s so much to unpack here. When Ben Solo finally comes out to play, it’s very good. We can finally see some things that explain Kylo Ren better – it’s so obvious how awkward he was in his own body trying to be an evil sith lord when he is clearly a natural disaster. He still suffers from tunnel vision, but at least now it’s Skywalker-do-or-die tunnel vision. It’s like a weight was lifted from his shoulders, and the way his actions scream Han Solo makes me, once again, wish the first movie had been about him, and not the whole “find a map/ Star Killer base was ANOTHER ridiculous idea / I know R2’s alignment is chaotic bastard but COME ON”.

Star Wars has a notorious story with pulling Force powers out of nowhere, and I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in SW lore, so I won’t complain about the dyad thing (and the weird stuff with the light sabers). I honestly liked the concept. There’s a lot I have to say about the final battle against Palpatine, but I think it would fit better in a future character study about Rey (God, that’s going to be another long ass post). I just want to add that after Luke insisted on her taking both light sabers to Exegol, and after all the crazy stuff Ben did to get to her, they should have, you know, actually fought side by side against 85% dead Palpatine? Aren’t these two idiots supposed to be stronger than that?? I’m not complaining about Rey bringing him down “alone” since she is the protagonist yada yada, I just wished that Ben had done something, instead of being thrown into a hole.

(Palps did that out of spite because of his grandfather? I bet he did.)

I won’t say I didn’t cry hearing the voices of the past jedi talking to Rey, because I definitely did. If anything, it was great to see so many beloved actors getting a chance to honor such iconic characters. But are you freaking shitting on us? Where were ANY of those assholes when Luke, Leia and Ben needed them, like, ten years ago?? “Well, force ghosts should not be used as ex machinas, and they don’t see the future” Tell that to episodes IV, V and VI. Anakin, Obi Wan and Yoda can show up for Vader weird funeral/party with ewoks but they can’t send a jedi signal for the Skywalkers to warn them about Sith bullshit about to happen? “They were probably ahead in the world the comes next and they didn’t have a way to come back, they just talked to Rey because Exegol is a Force nexus and-” And so is Ach-To. And so is Yavin IV. And so is Dagoba (Yes, Snoke sent Ben there for training). Look, I have no problems with Force Ghosts, I love them bastards. I’m just so freaking mad with the lack of coherence in this trilogy. If they did not talk to the Skywalkers – and I’m sure at least Luke and Ben asked Obi Wan/Anakin to show themselves A LOT – they should not have talked to Rey. It was a crowd please moment, for sure, but it was another gigantic middle finger to Ben Solo (before he becomes Kylo Ren).

And then Rey died, and Ben brings her back. I know how many funny jokes are going around in the fandom about how resurrecting Qui-Gon or Padme would have saved the galaxy so much trouble, but again, I’m okay with that. It was previously established that since they were a dyad, they had this living Force between them (although it was rushed in the final like everything else). And it does make sense Ben doing that: he had just come back to the light, and his parents were both dead. Han and Leia were gone because of him, the last time he saw Chewie was as his captor, and before that, he got shot by him, etc, you get the idea. He had nothing else, only this: the chance to make it right by a person that genuinely cared for him. Exchanging his life for Rey’s was nothing: he knew that his family would be waiting for him in the world that comes after.

So, did I like the Bendemption? It. Was. Not. A. Redemption. It was the right choice, and it made things right between him and Rey, because she forgave him for everything. But that’s it. He did not face the consequence of any of his previous actions. “But he died for her!” And we just established that it was not a difficult choice, considering that he had literally no reasons to stay alive if Rey was dead. If you want to see an actual redemption arc, go watch Avatar the Legend of Aang.

And finally, the kiss and the death. Okay, I know I’m digging my own grave by addressing that, but my mama raised no coward. Here it goes: it was fan service, pure and simple. It’s there to make part of the fanbase happy. Good for you, reylos, but to us, not shippers, it came out of nowhere. And I’m not questioning if they had feelings for each other or not: I’m talking about pacing and characterization. I’m not 100% convinced that Rey, as a character, as she was presented to us so far, would have done that. It felt out of place, and it broke the immersion of the scene. I was emotionally invested on what was going on, I was happy to see Ben smiling at her and everything, but then suddenly they were sucking faces and the “FAN SERVICE” alarm was so loud in my mind that I immediately lost interest. If they wanted that in the movie so much, there was probably a better way to do that.

It makes sense that Ben had to die to bring Rey back: one life for another and everything. I still think that, story-wise, it would have been better if none of them had died a ridiculous death, and Ben had faced the consequences of his actions as Kylo Ren, but okay, moving on. The main problem here is what happens after he dies: nothing. Absolute-effing-nothing. He dies, he disappears – which, again, I won’t question because Leia was involved and Skywalkers do whatever they want with the Force and I’m no expert – but that’s it. Rey, the same Rey that had just jumped his bones fifteen seconds earlier, doesn’t even mourn him. She doesn’t cry, she doesn’t do anything for him in the end, she just goes to Tattooine because it makes sense to the Skywalker saga to end where it started. She sees more of those Force Ghosts who never appear when they freaking should and that’s it.

Why is it bad? Well, first, like it or not, Ben Solo/Kylo Ren was one of the main characters and he deserved an actual final. Finn and Poe too, but those are long posts for another day. And second, it makes the fan-service in that kiss scene more evident. You can’t have the girl kiss him and in the next scene act like it didn’t matter at all. “Ok, then it was a thank-you kiss and there were no real feelings of loved involved”. But that makes it worse, it would be even more completely out of character for Rey – who avoids physical contact with people on the regular – to just kiss someone as a thank-you. Do you see how the math does not compute? If she had feelings for him, and therefore kissed him, she should have mourned him. If anything, she should at least miss her other part of the dyad thing. And if she didn’t mourn him because she didn’t have actual feelings, then she should not have kissed him. A little consistency, it’s all I’m asking.

7. Conclusions (aka tl;dr)

He was a somehow consistent character, but the lack of plot for the sequels was a huge problem. If the trilogy had been about Ben Solo becomes Kylo Ren – Kylo Ren kills Snoke and becomes the real villain – Rey faces Kylo Ren and she either saves him or kills him, it would have been so much better than the mess the studio did.

His story in the comics is so much more complex than what it is shown in the movies, but what they did to Han, Leia and Luke was a crime.

It was clear that one director had a vision to give him a redemption, and the other to make him the ultimate villain.

Adam Driver did what he could to make this character solid and somehow likable, let’s thank him for that.

There was no reason to bring Palps back,

Rey’s actions in the final are contradictory,

He should have stayed alive to face the consequences of his actions,

and the studio is charged guilt for getting our hopes up just to crush them with their lack of interest in doing something descent for the fans.

But again, that’s just my analysis of this character. Feel free to disagree with me, I would love to see what other people think about Ben Solo/Kylo Ren.

#character study #ben solo #kylo ren #star wars the sequel trilogy #adam driver #bendemption #star wars #long post #I got mad halfway and you can tell #rey #han solo #I blame the studio #mostly

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jimtheviking · 3 years

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So now that it's been a while since the ST ended, I'm gonna talk about why, of all three movies, the only one that worked for me was TLJ, and why The Mandalorian, Rogue One, Rebels, and Clone Wars are the best bit of New EU out there.

Okay so, first off, the basic thesis of this is that, when Star Wars works, has always been a story about one thing, and one thing only: Hope. And when it hasn't worked, it's been about how Cool and Badass and Edgy and Dark things can be in the Galaxy Far, Far Away.

So, let's start with the beginning, shall we?

The Force Awakens is a bad remake of A New Hope. And I don't say that just because JJ Abrams can't write or direct for shit (he can't, btw, but I'll get into that later.) I say that because, well, it's true. It's almost a shot-for-shot remake of ANH, except that unlike ANH, there is no sense of hope in the entire movie. Rey, Finn, and Poe are thrown into a Terrible Situation and they never once have any display of fear or doubt. They're confident and plucky and ready to win the day. At every point, even their lowest, they're plucky and scrappy and fighty and are never allowed to feel anything. And that means they can't hope for better things, they can't fight for a better world, because to their characters the better world is already there. It's the world they're in, because they can get what they want through Pluck and Scrappiness and Fighting Spirit, and never have to worry that it won't be enough.

Don't get me wrong, TFA is, of the two JJ films, better by a mile. Mostly because it has a coherent plotline. But it's still not good. Even when Han is killed, there is no chance to mourn him. There is no "I just can't believe he's gone" moment. There's a duel and a celebration. Leia feels his death and that could have been interesting to explore, but nothing gets done with Rey or Finn. Rey attaches to Han as a father figure, but it was Finn whose character was hamstrung most by Han's death. Finn should have been mentored in the ways of Roguish War Heroing by Han, just as Luke would mentor Rey in Jedi-ing, and Leia mentored Poe in Leader-ing. That is how the new Trio was shaping up to relate to the Original Trio, and should have gone that way. But no, JJ had to kill Han off for absolutely no purpose.

And there was no purpose to Han's death. I will get to that in a minute.

When Obi-Wan died, he died knowing he was buying the Trio time and that his sacrifice would help the Rebellion destroy the Death Star and ultimately prevent future Alderaans from ever happening again (and it did!) Obi-Wan dies in A New Hope because he knows that, like Leia said, he was her only hope. The only hope for the Rebellion. For the Galaxy. And, right after Scarif, he was the only hope she had. But now? On the Death Star? Surrounded by Storm Troopers, facing down his old padawan, his brother, his best friend? Now there is A New Hope (see what they did there?) and it's in Luke and Han and Leia and he doesn't die in vain. He sacrifices himself and that lets hope live on.

When Han died, it was, thematically, the exact opposite of Obi-Wan's death. Because Han wasn't expecting to die. Han's whole walking to meet Ben thing was him expressing hope - hope that his son would return to him, that there was good left in him - and then he was killed. Hope gets you killed in this movie, and it doesn't help anyone do anything. It doesn't save uncounted billions. It doesn't stop an evil Empire from terrorising the Galaxy. It doesn't inspire other people. It just gets you a lightsaber to the belly and kicked into an abyss. Han's death served no purpose except to show that Ben was evil. As if massacring untold hundreds of civilians to find the location of Luke wasn't indication enough. We knew Ben was evil. It was the entire point of the character. Killing Han was just to reinforce that hope is foolish.

Luke, as well, was terribly served in TFA. Luke Skywalker, who triumphed over evil despite hovering so close to the edge of it time and again, who does the right thing all the time, who every chance he gets tries to help and save people? That Luke Skywalker? He just fucked off to who knows where. Gone. Entirely. No explanation. Luke, who constantly failed in his Jedi training, but never gave up hope that he could become a Jedi, like his father before him. Luke, who knew he wasn't ready to confront Vader on Bespin but hoped he could get there soon enough to save his friends. Luke, who knew that there was no way he would be leaving Jabba's palace without a fight but still had hope that the Hutt could be negotiated with. He just...gives up. No explanation or reason given. Just...goes.

And that is the most wildly, painfully out of character moment in the entire ST for me. Because Luke was always Hope in the OT, and in the Filoni shows, and having him become Hopeless and leave? An absolute affront to the character.

But I digress.

I won't get into what TLJ did right (almost everything re: Luke, Rey, Leia, and Poe, and that throne room fight especially) and wrong (the handling of Finn, Space Monaco) but suffice it to say that TLJ at least understood that Hope was what made Star Wars good. Because Luke's sacrifice at the end of it was done just like Obi-Wan's. Luke did what he did, knowing he would die, but also knowing that it would buy time for Leia to escape. So long as Rey could get to her in time. He had Hope in Rey, and he had Hope in his own actions, and that Hope was rewarded. Luke dies, and dies a hero, dies giving Hope to the Resistance, dies a meaningful death for a hero to die.

And then we get to TRoS.

Oh god TRoS.

So, you know how I said JJ can't write or direct for shit? Here's a great example. Because we had Rey, a Jedi now like Luke had been, and ready to discover what being a Jedi means to her, and how she fits in the wider, larger Galaxy as a nobody, as a regular person who somehow became Greater than she started. As someone who isn't from a line of Force Users or other Super Special People becoming a hero and finding her place. Rey, who began her story on a desert planet, hoping desperately to be a part of some bigger dynasty, not having any confidence in herself being Rey from Nowhere, finds out she IS Rey from Nowhere, Daughter of Nobody, but becomes a Jedi, a Protector of the Galaxy, an important person in her own right, the Saviour of the Resistance. And then we find out she's the granddaughter of one of the most powerful Force users ever. And she makes herself a part of the Super Special Force User Dynasty. Completely destroying any character growth from the previous movie, because it's no longer Rey succeeding on her own, it's Rey being a Dynastic Heir.

Rey begins on a desert planet, digging things out of the sand, and ends on a desert planet, burying things in the sand. Rey begins not knowing who she really is and desperately wanting to, and ends up finding out, rejecting it, and claiming some other random legacy. Rey is no longer Rey from Jakku, she's Rey Palpatine and she wants to be Rey Skywalker so she just...claims it. There was a chance for Rey to be a beacon of Hope for other people who aren't from Force user lineages. But no, she's the child of a clone of the Emperor and decides she's a Skywalker because of an unexplained phenomenon that linked her to Ben. So without the Super Special Lineage, what hope does anyone have of changing the world for the better? None.

And, back to character deaths, Leia and Ben dying were two of the most hopeless scenes in all Star Wars. Entirely without hope. Utterly.

Why?

Well, let's start with Leia. Apparently, in the novelizations, she'd been forcing herself to stay alive to run the Resistance because no-one else could (despite like, a massive increase in operations staff, and, you know, Poe having been Leia's protogée in her Leadership Crash Course) and had been hearing Luke tell her it's okay to just let go and become one with the Force (what??) And so when she does decide to do that, it's when she transfers her life-force to Ben, to redeem him (maybe? At that point Ben hadn't had his weird Harrison Ford dressed up in Han Solo's costume hallucination, and it's not really clear why she's doing this in the film) and thus have him the Galaxy. Okay, that could work, but then Ben dies. And then dies again. Twice. (Though, really, only once, because apparently he got caught on a rock and broke his ribs and twisted his ankle when he fell in the pit, but you only learn that in the novelization. But I digress.)

So Leia's sacrifice to redeem her son is ultimately futile, because Rey managed to kill Palps on her own anyway, with the help of all the Jedi in the Force, and Ben was mostly dead. Then Rey dies from the exertion of it all, and that would be a shitty enough ending, bleak and hopeless - the only way good triumphs is by destroying itself - but then Ben comes back! And saves Rey using the healing powers Obi-Wan Kenobi used on Luke in A New Hope and Rey used earlier in the movie! Leia's sacrifice was meaningful! It redeemed Ben, who saved someone's life!

And then he dies.

Which makes Leia's death pointless again. Because she used the last of her life force to make her son Good, and then he just...dies.

And Ben's death is Hopeless in and of itself too. I'm not a Reylo fan - that dynamic just does not do it for me, generally, though there are some few well-written execptions - but how do you begin to say "The Power of Love can triumph over everything, even death!" and then kill off the person who did that? Like...that just says that Love and Sacrifice for others is pointless. That Hope is pointless. Because with Ben dying, Leia's sacrifice means nothing, and his own death means nothing because Dying Saving Someone You Love is just Suicide with Extra Steps if there's no Hope of Survival to it. The tragedy happens when a character dies hoping they can still make it back to the person they love. Ben, on the other hand, just...dies. The movie tells us that he's not worth surviving this, but Rey is. And so what, exactly, was the point of either Leia's sacrifice or Hope for her son?

Now let's get to the Filoni shows.

Clone Wars was a tragedy. Clone Wars, from the very beginning, was going to end badly for everyone involved. And it did. But even up to the end, they held out Hope that it wouldn't. And even after it happened, the survivors still Hoped that they could bring a return to Good. Obi-Wan sees literally everyone he loves die in front of him. Whether it's Satine or his fellow Jedi or Anakin, they all die. And yet he continues to Hope that the Light Side will prevail. Ahsoka loses everything and leaves the Order, but she still has Hope that she can make the Galaxy a better place. Rex loses his entire family, but Hopes that there are others out there who, like him, were able to avoid Order 66.

Rebels shows us that Ahsoka and Rex's Hope wasn't misplaced. That there was still a chance for them to do Good and for the Galaxy to resist the Empire. For Rex to find other Clones. For Ahsoka to find a purpose again. The crew of the Ghost hoped that what they would do would bring about a positive change. Kanan sacrificed himself knowing that Ezra, Hera, and Sabine would be able to help the Rebellion. Like Obi-Wan, he knew that he was not the only Hope - that Ezra and Ahsoka and Obi-Wan would continue on the path of the Jedi, even if the latter wouldn't join the Rebels, and that Hera's leadership ability and Sabine's connection to Clan Wren would help the Rebellion in coming battles. He died hoping that there was a greater good being served with his sacrifice, and it wasn't that he wanted to die - him looking back to Hera was all the proof that was needed - but that the survival of Hope was important.

Rogue One is pretty self-explanatory. Rebellions are built on hope. What did they send us? Hope. Always, every time, when it comes to it, Hope for the better is what people sacrifice themselves for. They don't do it because they don't feel like their lives are worth it. They do it because if they didn't, then Hope would die instead. And Hope is what makes life possible.

The Mandalorian keeps up this trend, too. Din was doing his thing, collecting bounties and not caring about anyone or anything but The Way until he meets the Child. And at that point, he feels something, a greater purpose, and when he's given his task by the Armourer, he accepts it. At first, he wants to complete a Quest, but as time goes on, he bonds with the Child and, once he realizes that, everything from that point forward is Din Djarin, the Mandalorian, a faceless and ruthless hunter, hoping that he can make this child's life better in some measurable way. When Din finds a settlement that's in trouble, he could just get what he comes for, but he knows that the people are suffering and you can't ignore that he has the Hope that the Galaxy will, one day, be a better place, and he can make it a bit better by doing what he does. So he does it. And keeps doing it. Because the people are hoping for salvation and, even if he's not what they want, he can at least fake it well enough that they don't realize it.

So yeah.

Hope is what good Star Wars media is about. It's what it's always been about. And when it's ignored, we get TFA and TRoS.

#Jim rants #about Star Wars #I'm not tagging it as Star Wars #because I don't want to get into Discourse with folk I don't know #but hooooooo boy

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dagenspear · 4 years

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Basic Plot Redo of THE LAST JEDI

I don't particularly hate TLJ, but I think the movie is not well done, to me, and I think I had different references for. I think they could've stood to have Rey be Luke's daughter and structure a story about the burden of legacy in TLJ. Lord willing, these are the ideas that God blessed me with:

First, an exploration of backstory:

I don’t fully mind what they did with Luke. In concept I like it, but I think there’s things left out that could round out the character and explore his characterization and reasons for his actions. Luke began a new jedi order. He married Mara Jade, they have a daughter, Rey, but then the emergence of a new dark side force begins, the first order rises and Luke doesn't understand why this has happened again. Anakin destroyed the sith. It should be over. While I don’t know if I’d go for this, but Mara Jade is killed in battle defending her daughter in the midst of a raid by the first order, maybe even the Knights Of Ren do it.

Luke, tormented by this, furiously digs for information about why this has begun again, and finds out the meaning of it, that the balance is a cycle, not a single event. When he senses the dark side in Ben, senses Snoke’s influence, he feels it all happen again, the fall of the jedi, the rise of the empire, the destruction of the family he has left. In that moment of fear and pain, shaken by the perception of his family being destroyed by a rise of another Vader, he allows his fear to drive him, and considers killing his nefew, maybe even in a way to almost spare him the pain that his future could bring him, taking out his lightsaber, but not igniting it, realizing that it would be wrong to do, maybe even seeing his robot hand, reminding him of the events of ROTJ.

But Ben senses that and lashes out in rage. The new jedi order is burned, his daughter gone, her dead he thinks and his powers gone. Luke sees this as almost the force punishing him for what he did. Casting out those remaining, among them a partner in his training Lor San Tekka, sending R2D2 with him.

Luke himself not realizing that Ben had taken Rey, feeling tempted to kill her to avoid a threat to his rightful Skywalker lineage, but being unable to kill his cousin, he wiped her mind of any training she’d gotten by Luke and abandoned her on Jakku. Lor San Tekka discovered Rey and that’s why he was there and was willing to reveal the map to Luke at this time. He believed the knowledge of his daughter being alive, would reignite the spark of hope inside him, a message he never had the chance to relay to Poe, before the first order attacked. Han considered this to be the case as well after meeting her and Leia sensed it after they met as well. Kylo began to see it after hearing about it.

Luke over the course of the movie does grow to rediscover his goals by the end. Through finding out that Rey is his daughter and connecting to her and admitting what he did with Ben, feeling like he's disconnected from the force as a punishment, seeing him considering killing Ben as not much different than what Vader had done when killing the younglings. He sees his 2nd chance in Rey. But this is hurt when Rey discovers that Luke didn't try to find her after she was taken. Luke is in shame by this, as Rey leaves. Luke is then confronted by either Yoda or Obi-Wan (or both), who explain to him that he's seen Vader in himself and thus saw his failure as if he would be like him, saying that Luke has lost sight of what made him him, and it wasn't being a jedi. Them telling him the folly of not seeing his own humanity, underneath being a jedi, confronting him with truth of what happened to Padme, who Luke has no memories of and hasn't connected with (seeing only the Vader/Anakin in himself), telling him that they sensed in her that the children were beginning to die in the womb, but she gave up every ounce of life force she had left to keep alive, in spite of not being a jedi or force sensitive. In the midst of this Luke realizes that he cut himself off from the force in his shame and self loathing, he wasn't being punished. He reaches through the force and out to Padme, seeing her after she's given birth to him, even in the present feeling the touch of her energy on his face, seeing her and Anakin. Luke resolves to go after Rey.

Leia still grieves for the loss of Han, but almost refuses to see her son as gone, this building to her outright attacking a first order village raid to try and lure Kylo to them, her confronting Kylo and practically daring him to kill her. He can't. But Kylo is forced to bring Leia to Snoke. We'd also develop Leia having trained as a jedi with Luke.

Rey was never raised, to her knowledge, with the idea of what potential she had. Into adulthood, she's confronted and dragged into that potential. After meeting Luke, she thinks he must've left her on Jakku. But Kylo, still through their link, tells her that he didn't do that and that he took her to kill her, but couldn't. Now, after discovering the pain and loss that comes with being a Skywalker, to the point of feeling abandoned and betrayed by Luke, her dad. After finding out that Luke didn't come looking for her, out of fear of finding her dead, she lashes out at him, angry and hurt, feeling abandoned and betrayed, telling him he has nothing to teach her. Then hunting down Kylo for the death of Han and Finn being hurt.

On the flipside there's Ben, someone who was raised in the Skywalker family, with knowledge of his potential, of his legacy, the idea that his bloodline has potential power that he thinks is his birthright, but it's just out of his reach, and he becomes bitter and feels cheated out of what he sees as rightfully his. And when tempted by the darkside, he doesn't choose to resist, seeing it as his way to get the true power of a Skywalker. He could resent Han for being normal, a mere pilot, seeing him as apart of his weakness. After killing his dad, his pain is crippling, something he takes out on his fodder, in the midst of his final training with Snoke. This grows to a rage and resentment against Snoke and the first order, as he and the Knights Of Ren are used as a weapon to invade worlds and plunder children, and particularly after Snoke forces Kylo to bring Leia to him.

Finn may be more committed to Rey, but he himself also has begun to see what these people are dying for, and does decide to help Poe and the resistance, when Leia gets herself captured as a way for them to pinpoint a location of Snoke. Helping them break into a stormtrooper training facility to use their network to track Kylo's ship to Snoke, them seeing children being taken by the first order, and him deciding to try and help them, only to fail when Phasma, rather than let the kids go free, has some of them killed. Leading to Finn seeing the unfortunate side effect of caring, the pain of failure and loss. Him reacting badly to this and in a rage hunting down and killing Phasma.

With Poe, detail his backstory as almost someone with a death wish, whose looking to die in a blaze of glory in his mind. His parents, former rebels, killed by the last remnants of the empire, him becoming someone who doesn't get particularly attached. His arc being him finding something to live for, instead of die for, as he and Finn try and rescue the children taken to be indoctrinated by the first order. When pinned in some rubble, he cuts his hand off to ensure, he can protect the children and secure their way out.

All of these plots begin to converge on Snoke's ship. Leia is brought to Snoke by Ben. But Leia shocked to discover that Snoke is a force projection.

In a reveal, we'd see that Ben, seeking the power he felt he deserved as a Skywalker, tapped into the dark side and in mental disconnection, it has manifested itself as Snoke, the darkest parts of Ben's mind given life by the dark side energy he'd absorbed.

It pushes Kylo to kill Leia, as she tries to reach him. He lashes out in a rage and kills the Snoke manifestation, taking it into himself and taking in all the power of the dark side.

Rey charges Kylo in her rage, and tries to kill him, but Kylo defeats her. His powers outmatching hers, tossing her off to the Knights. Luke arrives in time, brandishing his green light saber, facing Kylo and (though this is more a suggestion) but Luke taking Anakin's lightsaber and passing it off to Leia, to assist. As Rey steals one of the Knights weapons and tries to fight them off. Them both battling Kylo and trying to reach him. Kylo exclaiming that he's building a legacy, beyond the Skywalkers now. Luke and Leia firing back that all he is another dark sider leading a stormtrooper army.

Kylo, realizing they're right, uses his powers to turn all the ships of the first order on eachother, stating a new path, "No more stormtroopers, no more death stars, no more empire." Making the statement of the dark side being the only thing left, and using the ships weapons to destroy eachother, even Snoke's ship, Kylo casually protecting himself from the destruction. Rey is the first the recover and tries to catch Kylo off guard, who stomps her, wounds her and in a petty slash of vengeance, slices the lightsaber over Rey's left eye, blinding her in it and scarring her. He lifts his lightsaber up and brings it down as a final blow, but Leia takes the hit for Rey. Kylo, for all his villainy, is still enraged at this and tears the already damaged ship apart in his pain and anger. This allows Luke and Rey to escape with a dying Leia. (I did this in the hindsight of Carrie's passing.)

Leia tells Luke she knows what happened and she forgives him. Luke apologizing for Han and what he did, promising he won't give up again. Rey, devestated at what she sees as her fault, tries to help, refuses to believes there isn't a way. Luke holds her off, her crying, as she apologizes to Leia. Who simply reminds her that they all make mistakes and apart of her believes her son isn't gone. Luke reaffirming that with the no one's ever really gone line. And with that Leia peacefully passes away.

And with that we end the movie:

Luke having re-established his goal of heroism and maybe even left as a resistance leader.

Poe, seeing himself as having found something to live for.

Finn being driven by a desire for revenge upon any remnants of the FO.

And Rey, as she stands out in front of the forcefield of the x-wing bay, in the starship, over looking an ocean of stars, holding Anakin's lightsaber. She, in a rejection of the Skywalker legacy and the pain and death that comes with it, throws the lightsaber into space.

The movie ending on her standing in front of that ocean of stars.

THE END

Please review and tell me what you think!

#reysky #rey skywalker #anti+reylo #anti st #anti tlj

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healingpast-a · 4 years

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AEQUUSJEDI CANON DIVERGENCE / PLEASE DO NOT REBLOG MY REY IS NOT A PALPATINE !! SHE IS NOBODY !!

THE FORCE AWAKENS

By all accounts, Rey was abandoned by her family on the desert planet of Jakku at a very young age, no more than five - though she can’t quite remember exactly how old she was. While she began under the employ of other scavengers, they treated her like property and eventually she realised she was talented enough as a scavenger on her own and decided it would be better to find for herself. Unkar Plutt himself told the other scavengers not to bother her, knowing she was the best chance he had of rare parts. Rey got by remarkably well for a child left to handle things on her own, managing to find fairly valuable parts in the crashed starships and trading them for food. An agile climber and athlete, she taught herself how to fight with a quarterstaff to fend off attackers and made her home in a crashed Imperial Transport where she counted the days she’d been stranded, waiting for the return of her family.

During her life she came across many traders and learned many things - including mechanics, piloting and a number of languages. She learned to understand binary and some of the droids she met became the few friends she had until they eventually failed due to the sand. She always knew there was something about her that made her faster and move more freely than others. She felt things and languages felt more like instinct than anything. It was only later in life did she realise this was the Force manifesting itself in her.

Rey’s life changed (for the better) when she came across BB-8 and Finn and they escaped off the planet in order to return the droid to the Resistance. While Rey still wanted to return to Jakku in order to wait for her family, she was suddenly thrust into a battle she had only ever heard about between the First Order and the Resistance. The Force was no longer a legend and nor was Luke Skywalker. Suddenly, a lot more of her childhood had made sense. Visions of a boy who she would later discover to be Ben Solo, had plagued her dreams, but she didn’t recognise him under the guise of Kylo Ren. Accompanying Han Solo and Chewbacca to Takodana, Rey made the decision not to return to Jakku. She finally realised that her family were not returning, and decided to put her scavenging to use on the Falcon after Han’s offer of employment. When the legacy lightsaber called her, Rey found it and realised that there was even more to the Force than she had expected, hearing the voice from her visions more clearly telling her he would come back for her. It was strange and dangerous and Rey was suddenly afraid. She fled with the intention of heading back to Jakku where everything had been normal, but was stopped by BB-8. Before she had time to consider her options, Rey was captured by Kylo Ren and taken aboard the Starkiller Base for interrogation.

Though Ren attempted to use the Force to break through the barriers on Rey’s mind, she fought back and saw more of his fears than she had anticipated. When they met, face-to-face, and she recognised the boy from her visions, she was startled but still kept fighting back. Ren, sensing their connection, freed her from her bonds and she managed to use the Force to manipulate the Storm Troopers into allowing her to go free. There she found Finn, Han and Chewbacca. During their attempted escape, Han was killed (verse dependent) and Rey was given the legacy saber by Finn.

In the forest, Rey was plagued by the sense that they were being followed and Kylo Ren offered to teach her, wanting to give her the opportunity to learn to use her abilities. Too distraught by the loss of Han, she chose instead to fight him. Though she was clumsy and untrained, she found herself adept at the use of a lightsaber, managing to translate some of her previous knowledge of fighting to gain the advantage. Finn was shot and the base was destroyed, leaving Kylo Ren behind as they escaped on the Millennium Falcon with Chewie.

On their return, Rey met Leia at the Resistance HQ and they spoke extensively of Han and of Ben, giving Rey the realisation that Kylo Ren was Leia and Han’s son and also the boy from her visions. Her abilities with the Force were strong and she was suffering from worse and worse visions. With the map to Luke now available to them and R2D2 now awake, Leia encouraged Rey to seek out her brother and learn to control her abilities from him - also wanting to give Luke a chance to come home.

THE LAST JEDI

Rey, Chewie & Artoo headed for Ahch-To, where she gave Luke his saber. While at first he rejected it and her request to teach him, Luke saw Rey’s draw to the sacred Jedi places and decided he would teach her. He wanted to atone for the fact that Snoke had corrupted him, causing him to lash out at Ben and making him turn to the Dark Side, and so he taught Rey many of the basics she had yet to learn.

While she was on the island, she was plagued with visions of Ben and they began to talk more and more, learning of each other’s pasts and of what Ben believed had happened with Luke. She tried to implore him that it wasn’t the case, and that she could show him but he was corrupted and maintained his position with Snoke. Rey, seeking answers about her parents and her visions, delved down into the Darkness where the Force spoke to her, though still in vague imagery. It did not tell her who her family was, only made her confused by the visions of two who were one.

Luke was horrified when he saw Rey and Ben communicating via their Force bond, afraid he’d lost another student to the Dark Side, and Rey told him she was going to return Ben to the light, he had to trust her. And so she left, asking Chewie to send her in a pod. Once aboard Snoke’s ship, Rey was captured by Kylo Ren. She pleaded with him to turn, that she would help him and bring him home, but he rejected her offer.

Taking her in front of the Supreme Leader, Snoke told her he had stoked their bond and had given her the visions of Ben’s turning, but Rey knew there was more to them. She pleaded silently with Kylo Ren as he was about to kill her and witnessed Ben instead use the legacy saber to kill the Supreme Leader. They fought together, taking out the Praetorial Guard and Ben offered her to take his hand and change the galaxy together. He told her he had seen who her family was and that they were nobody, that they were junk traders who’d sold her.

Rey knew that she couldn’t follow him like this, and so they fought over the saber, eventually destroying it and knocking them both unconscious. She was the first to recover and though it killed her to leave him, Rey took the shattered pieces of the saber and launched herself in Snoke’s escape pod. Her injuries proved too much and once again she blacked out.

Visions of that same voice and the same imagery of two who were one haunted her and forced her to awake, adrift in the escape vessel. She was able to contact Chewie, who docked with her and she boarded the Falcon, intent to help the Resistance who were now in fierce battle with the First Order.

She and Chewbacca saved what was left of the Resistance and they headed for Anoat. While they travelled, Rey spoke with Leia about Ben, trying to learn more about the reasons he would continue to choose the Dark Side. Leia could see that Rey had come to care about him and that there was more to it than met the eye. Rey recounted the offer Ben had given her and Leia decided she would teach Rey everything she knew about the Force, as Luke had once done for her before she had chosen love instead of the Jedi path.

THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

On Ajan Kloss, Rey resumed Jedi training under Leia this time while the First Order searched for them. Her visions of Ben became more and more frequent, though she tried desperately to shut him out. She took a mission to aid in recruitment for the Resistance on an Outer Rim planet, and Ben, now the Supreme Leader, sought her out. They battled and he pried for the new base’s location but Rey succeeded in keeping the information from him and told him that the Resistance was growing and that they would win. Eventually she gained the upper hand and fled, throwing herself back into training on Ajan Kloss with Leia who was beginning to worry.

Rey’s presence in the Resistance was drawing more recruits, knowing that the Last Jedi was fighting against the First Order. This put a large amount of pressure on her and she stopped going on missions, trying desperately to become the Hero the Resistance needed her to be and to be worthy of Luke’s now rebuilt lightsaber. She ran a gauntlet that Luke had once prepared for Leia herself, utilising all of his old training gear in order to build her abilities with the Force.

A year after the Battle of Crait, an ominous message alerting the galaxy of the Sith Lord Darth Sidious’ return was broadcast and a message stating that Kylo Ren had sought him out from an unknown source within the First Order alerted Rey to what she would have to do. She would have to destroy a Sith, one who had faced death and won. She would have to find him in order to be the hero they needed.

Word reached the Resistance that Ren had found Exegol and Sidious, so Rey, realising that some of his writings showed that Luke had been seeking the same planet, studied the Jedi texts and learned of the Sith Wayfinders. Though she had intended to travel to find these wayfinders alone, her friends insisted on accompanying her and they travelled to Pasaana, the last place on Luke’s list that he had searched for one of the Wayfinders, belonging to Ochi, a Sith Assassin.

The planet proved homelike to Rey and she found it teeming with life, a stark difference from Jakku. Celebrating the Festival of the Ancestors, she was gifted a necklace of welcoming. The Force was strong in the Festival, activating the bond between Rey and Kylo Ren. He seized the necklace she’d been given, realising their location and sending the First Order troops to search for them. Now under high risk, Rey and the others attempted to avoid detection by the troops and were aided by Lando Calrissian, whom Leia had asked for help. Rey and the others were directed to the abandoned ship that had belonged to the Sith out in the desert by Lando, who had also helped Luke find it once before.

Ambushed by troopers, the team managed to escape only to be trapped in sinking sand where they found themselves lost in tunnels created by a sand snake. Though doom had seemed imminent, Rey realised that the creature was wounded and healed it using the Force, something she had only tried on minor injuries before then. An old dagger with Sith texts alerted them that they’d found what they’d been searching for and C3-PO explained that whilst he could translate what the dagger said, his programming forbade him from speaking the Sith language and so they would have to extract the data from his memory banks somehow.

Free of the tunnels, Rey sensed the presence of Kylo Ren and the First Order. She told the others to leave using Ochi’s ship, sensing that the Falcon had been taken. She stayed, ready to fight Ren. Whilst they fought, Chewbacca and the dagger were captured by the First Order and Rey attempted to use the Force to bring down the transport that was taking them. Fighting against Ren’s pull, she released a sudden burst of power and exploded the ship.

Rey, thinking that she had killed Chewbacca, became more determined to stop the First Order. Miserable and even more certain she couldn’t be the hero they needed, she and the others travelled to Kijimi in order to have C3-PO’s memory extrapolated to give them the data they required.

On Kijimi they were stopped by an old acquaintance of Poe’s who had felt abandoned by his leaving their group for the Resistance and was now working as a local spice runner. She and Rey fought, though Rey won and Zorii agreed to take them to Babu Frik who successfully managed to extract the data from Threepio’s memory bank, giving them the information they needed but unfortunately deleting the rest of his memory bank at the same time. As the data was extracted, Rey sensed the First Order and Kylo Ren approaching. She realised then that Chewbacca was alive, sensing him in the Force and realising she had to rescue him.

The group boarded the First Order destroyer to seek the captive Chewie, Rey utilising the Jedi ability to change minds in order to gain access to the ship. Once he’d been found, the Force reached out to her and she realised that the dagger meant more to them than just the information that they’d got from it. She sent the others to steal back the ship, knowing she would join them, and followed the call from the Dagger into Ben’s personal quarters. Visions of Kylo Ren, of Darth Vader and of Darth Sidious plagued her immediately, a jumble of darkness that called out to her to join them. She ignored them as best she could and took hold of the dagger.

Immediately, the Force showed her that Darth Sidious had sent Ochi to Jakku after her parents. Her birth had caused a disturbance in the Force and they’d been running since, desperately trying to avoid those who wished to take their child from them. Rey, though born to simple junk traders, had not been sold. She had been left in the care of Unkar Platt as a way to protect her from being found, and Ochi had killed her parents trying to gain knowledge of her whereabouts.

Realising that Sidious had orchestrated the deaths of her parents, she was briefly enraged and filled with power, causing a connection with Ben who, when they duelled, realised where she was and began his return to his ship. Rey, grabbing the dagger and Chewie’s bandolier headed for the hanger where she thought they would be. Surrounded by Storm Troopers as Ben landed on his ship, he explained to her that the Emperor wanted her dead and that he wouldn’t let that happen. Ben explained that they were a Dyad in the Force, a rare occurrence created by the Force to create a perfect balance. Equal parts darkness and light, and that if she took his hand, they could kill Sidious together. She considered it, but realised that Finn and the others were coming for her on the Falcon and she jumped to them, escaping.

Using the data they’d gained, they flew the falcon to Kef Bir where they met a group of ex-Storm Troopers who’d made their home on the planet. The remains of the Death Star loomed in the distance and Rey realised she needed to get there, to get the Wayfinder and kill Darth Sidious. Sensing the connection between the Dagger and the Death Star, Rey lifted it to her eyes and realised that it pointed to the location of the Wayfinder inside of the ruin. She asked how long it would take to get there and they told her they would have to wait. Corrupted with anger and the need to succeed, to be the Hero the Resistance needed, Rey ignored Jannah’s warnings that the ocean was too dangerous and snuck away, stealing a skimmer and using the Force, made her way across the waves to the ruins of the Death Star.

She was horrified by the dark energy she felt there, haunted by visions of what atrocities it had performed as she climbed through the ruins. So plagued by visions, Rey didn’t notice the approach of Kylo Ren, who knew where she would go. Finally finding the Throne Room, Rey used the Force to break into a chamber containing the Wayfinder. In it, she battled with a vision of herself corrupted by darkness and anger. She was nearly bested by the vision, almost giving in to it when she lashed out and killed the image of herself in a single swipe of Luke’s blade, dropping the Wayfinder. When she blinked, she was looking directly at Ben, whom had flown his ship to her in an attempt to reach out once again.

Too caught up in what she’d just seen, she didn’t notice the missing Wayfinder until Ben destroyed it, telling her that if she was going to Exegol it was with him. Enraged and seething, Rey began to duel with Ben, who had begun to question Sidious’ influence. While it seemed she had the upper hand, the more she fought the more Ben fought back and bested her but before he could kill her he stopped. In moments later, Leia reached out to him using the Force and he realised what he was doing, dropping his saber. Still corrupted by rage, Rey stabbed him with it.

Immediately realising what she’d done and snapping out of the the corruption, Rey fell to her knees beside Ben, using as much power as she could muster to heal him. Though she told him she’d wanted to take his hand, Rey was terrified of the darkness that had overwhelmed him and fled using his ship, leaving him behind and travelling back to Ahch-To alone. Not wanting to become the vision of darkness she’d seen of herself, Rey burned Ren’s ship and went to toss the Legacy Lightsaber into the flames, only to be stopped by Luke’s ghost who explained to her that overcoming that fear and that darkness was what would make her strong.

She explained she had no Wayfinder and no way to escape, but Luke guided her to his sunken X-Wing, aiding her to raise it from the water and showing her the Wayfinder in Ren’s ship. He gave her back his saber as well as Leia’s, offering his belief in her as his student. He told her then that Ben had been restored to the Light thanks to her, and that only she could do what needed to be done but that the aid of her friends would give her the strength and courage she would require.

Taking the X-Wing, Rey input the details to Exegol and sent out a beacon for the Resistance to follow. Whilst the Resistance engaged in battle with the Sith fleet, Rey landed on the planet’s surface to hunt for Darth Sidious. When she found him, she realised that he had been waiting for her and poised herself for a fight. He told her that should she kill him, he will be reborn in her of her rage and corruption and that she would be the one to destroy her friends.

Rey sheathed her saber and said she wouldn’t do that, and that he would have to kill her, thinking that her sacrifice might mean that the Resistance would live another day. It was at that moment that she realised that Ben had arrived on the planet and was coming to her aid. Rey finally realised what all her visions had meant and that was their combined power two who were one, the dyad in the force, and the last of the Jedi.

Using their bond, she gave Ben his mother’s lightsaber so he could defend himself against the Knights of Ren, whom Palpatine had promised a new life amongst the Sith. Though it killed him to fight the group whom were once his friends, Ben managed to break through and get to her where they together defended and fought against Darth Sidious.

His Force lightning was defended against by the both of their lightsabers and the strength of their dyadic bond. Their power combined deflected his and they worked together to destroy him so that he could capture neither of them wholly and their combined ability kept them protected by the Light and the strength of all the Jedi who had come before them standing with them and aiding them through the Force.

The impact of the destruction caused Rey and Ben to be thrown away from one another. Rey’s head impacted against the ground and her arm broke where she’d hit a rock, but Ben was thrown down a nearby cavern. Above, the Resistance forces were joined by thousands of civilians, come to aid in the fight against the Final Order and the remnants of the Sith Fleet were destroyed.

Ben pulled himself out of the pit, realising that Rey was on the verge of death due to her injuries. Using the Force to heal her, she recovered and they had the chance to really look at each other and realise the strength of their bond for the first time. WITH BEN’S DEATH / The toll from returning Rey from near death caused Ben’s disappearance into the Force, leaving her confused and alone. She fled the planet on Luke’s ship and returned to Ajan Kloss, where the Resistance were celebrating. Though she joined them in mourning the loss of Leia and celebrating their success, she could not remain with them for very long as she realised she still had to find out more about Ben, still feeling his presence in the Force.

She left, seeking answers on the World Between Worlds. Taking the legacy sabers and finding a new Kyber crystal for herself, Rey began work on a new Jedi Order whilst searching for a way to restore Ben Solo.

WITH BEN’S SURVIVAL / The toll from saving Rey caused Ben to collapse and she carried them both back to Luke’s ship as the planet collapsed around them.

Though Rey herself was struggling, she managed to return them to the Resistance Base where they were both rushed to Bacta tanks where they spent days in recovery. Rey was the first to wake, greeted by Leia and her friends. They celebrated quietly, waiting for Ben to wake too.

Once he had recovered and had reunited with his mother, Rey and Ben made the decision to leave Ajan Kloss together and seek answers about their dyadic bond. Leaving Leia with her own and Luke’s lightsabers, they sought new kyber crystals, making their own sabers and discussing the future of the Jedi Order and what would need to change.

#ʏᴏᴜɴɢ ᴠᴏʟᴄᴀɴᴏᴇꜱ * headcanons #ᴠᴇʀꜱᴇ * main #long post cw

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twilightofthe · 4 years

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SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE EPISODE 9 BENEATH THE CUT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

S O . . .

Honestly I’m kinda really glad I spoiled myself for this movie because I got really really upset by the reviews and went in with my expectations basically on the floor, so I was actually able to be pleased and happy with a couple things in the movie, so I will start off with the few things I did like.

I loved the Rey/Finn/Poe dynamic. The actors’ chemistry works sooooo well together and I loved their adventure through the first two acts. You can see how much these guys all genuinely like each other-- even tho the script seems to try VERY HARD to stick Poe and Finn with the worst case of “NO HOMO NO HOMO”-ing I’ve seen in Star Wars since Anakin and Obi Wan in The Clone Wars lol. Seriously, the script is trying so so hard to pick fights between Poe and Finn, but blessed amazing Oscar Isaac and John Boyega manage to play it so the entire conflict reads more like Poe is jealous of Finn’s feelings over Rey, they act it VERY MUCH like quarreling lovers and it is completely 100% the work of John and Oscar and I love these two so much, I owe them my life.

I adore Rey and Finn’s chemistry too, they spend the entire film with Finn desperately worrying over Rey and Rey confiding her worries and fears to Finn and constantly giving each other looks and ugh, I love them so much.

Force Sensitive!Finn!!! Just for a second but it happened! They should have been more blatant but I like that he canonically is!!!

Just in general, I’ve always been a Jedistormpilot shipper, and I feel the ending really leaves that as an open option I will happily take.

The bits with the Resistance and Leia did the best they could with Carrie’s footage. It was choppy and kinda obvious that footage was all they had to work with, but they tried their hardest and given what little they had to work with, I will unhappily accept it and the fact that Leia had little to no role in the story. I’m still really upset about it and her character’s death was so damn anticlimactic, but it was what happened.

Billy Dee Williams was charming and awesome as Lando, I loved seeing him, and he did a wonderful job, even if he was just a nostalgia cameo.

3PO was entertaining as ever! I liked him! They definitely sidelined R2 way too much, but I was glad to see 3PO and I was glad that he didn’t permanently lose his memory! The only thing I was kinda ehhh about was the bit with the dagger and the Sith language because the way he was suddenly able to translate it after not being able to translate it????? Did not make sense at all???????????

Abrams fucking got me with the nostalgia for a second during the Luke Force Ghost scene. I’m sorry, but I was so happy to see that Leia had done a bit of Jedi training then chose to give it up, I loved the callback to Yoda lifting the X-Wing but then Luke’s ghost did it-- COMPLETE WITH THE OG MUSIC!!!!! Mark knocked it out of the park and I just love seeing him.

Same for Ian and Sidious! While I personally did not like the Sidious plot at all and I will expand more on that later, I loved seeing Mr. McDiarmid again and he always just fills me with a bit of glee being his dramatic Palpy self because he’s just as good and as hatable as he’s always been and I thank him for it.

I think that was about it for what I liked, and honestly that was all the work of the talented actors and me being happy to see them pulling off their characters to the best of their abilities. The plot itself??? Ehhhhhhhhhh.....

Look, as I mentioned before, I liked the Jedistormpilot mission. That was fun.

The entire Resistance plot? Way way way too staggered and jumped around too much, not going into detail, felt a lot like it was trying to cram in everything with little payoff and not much emphasis placed on the importance of its plan so the audience really doesn’t get time to register everything that’s happening with them, let alone care about them

Naomi Ackie did a charming job with Jannah, I would have liked it if her entire plot didn’t kinda invalidate Finn’s overall story arc. I get they were trying to say “oh look! Finn’s not alone! There are other ex-stormtrooper rebels! Just like Finn!!!” Instead what it looks like is saying basically that Finn isn’t special, Finn’s defection wasn’t important overall, literally everyone does it, and it means nothing.

(Also going off of this, it really felt like JJ caved to the TLJ hate and totally sidelined Rose, she did like jacksquat in this and I’m mad)

The thing is, I don’t think the Resistance plot and the search for Palpy mission would have been as scattered and rushed and disorganized IF: Rey Palpatine wasn’t a thing, Reylo wasn’t a thing, and Force Ghosts were utilized more.

Look, I was fine with Palpy coming back (on a condition). Someone had to be the big bad and Disney is too worried about toy sales for it to ever be Kylo, so I knew Sidious could work-- provided they brought back the Skywalkers whose stories were intertwined with his and involved them in his ultimate downfall somehow.

I was fine with Rey Nobody. I was a little mad all the Skywalker legacy was going to her without her earning it really, but I figured that if the final film connected her with the Skywalkers properly, it would be fine, she had time to earn it.

Instead, we got little to no Skywalkers-- one Luke scene that meant nothing to the plot, scraped together Leia footage they could only take so far, and a fucking muddled voiceover from the man who Sidious screwed over the most, the one who originally killed him, the one who should have been THERE. Look, I should have known they would never actually bring Anakin back, but dammit, he SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE. HE SHOULD HAVE. This was his story originally, like it or not, and the entire goddamn Sequel Trilogy never so much as said his name, even when they brought back the creep that destroyed his life and he was supposed to give his own to defeat.

Literally no one asked for the Rey Palpatine plot. It made no sense, you feel nothing for her “heroic” parents because you know literally nothing about either of them, the convoluted logic on why/why not Sidious wants her alive makes no sense. His goal makes no sense, it’s confusing, so he wants Kylo to kill her but he also doesn’t, he wants Rey there so she can kill him and he can transfer his life force into her and then he’ll bring the Sith back somehow with all that hooded crowd on the bottom of Exetor??? Where did they even come from?? What happened to the canon saying all the dead Sith were on Korriban? How is Palpy even gonna use Rey to bring back the other Sith???? When can his ghost/zombie corpse/whatever the fuck he is just fucking pull life energy out of people’s chests?

What they should have focused on instead of the timeline devoted to Rey Palpatine was keep Sidious as the threat, keep all his other “raising the dead Sith” stuff-- just move his hidey hole to Korriban dammit --and have all the Rey’s parents plot shift to scenes with her interacting with Luke and Anakin’s Force Ghosts trying to figure out how to take down Palps together once and for all. Let her get adopted into the Skywalker family by the only two who actually carried the name, not just have her randomly take it at the end after interacting with Luke freaking once. She has seemingly close relationships with Leia and Ben, dammit, in that case she should have been Rey Solo or Rey Organa.

Also have Luke’s Force Ghost replace the nonsense with whatever guy Luke was apparently working with to track down Sidious on Exetor-- we never saw all of that and having aaaaaall of that background wordvomited onto us by 3PO at once makes it jarring and confusing and forgettable. Literally just have Luke show up and tell them!!!!

Han’s appearance to Kylo on whatsitsname Endor water moon??? Also should have been Anakin if they really wanted to show Kylo/Ben’s beginning to turn (really it should have been Leia but again I get why they couldn’t) back to the Light via a convo with the dead. Like omgggg let him finally talk to the grandfather he was trying to impress!! The opening was right there???? But nope, Han is there, and I guess whatever he says is suddenly enough to turn him good again???

(THIS ALSO MEANS MY FUCKING FANFIC WAS RIGHT. HAN SOLO IS A FORCE GHOST. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. THAT WAS LITERALLY THE ONE THING I PROCLAIMED WOULD NOT BE CANON. I’M THE NEW ORACLE OF DELPHI BITCHES. WHAT THE FUCK.)

Aaaaand this brings me to the romance. The fucking romance. Look, I’m sorry if you guys all do, I really am, and I respect if you want to unfollow, but I never have been able to stomach Reylo. Ever. I never saw the romance. I saw pain and abuse and one-sided obsession. Check that, I will admit that I always saw some sort of want from Kylo. Adam played him very much being obsessed with having Rey with him for some reason throughout all the films, but it also always played as toxic, and him not knowing what to do with that want, and just lashing out and abusing and forcing himself on her at every turn. It never played as a healthy relationship and it never played like Kylo should be rewarded for it. And this entire film???? I see still no romance???? Like the first half is just Rey being damn furious at Kylo, hating him, literally wanting nothing to do with him. I think another part of it is that I have never in the films seen Rey as having romantic or emotional feelings for Kylo, not ever. Not consistantly. It’s always just been an entire film’s worth of her despising him-- no not in an enemies to lovers UST despising, like actual hate and frustration --and then one singular bizarre scene that sticks out like a wart on a face where she suddenly does a 180 and is soft with him, like in the elevator scene in TLJ or the ending scene of TROS. I wouldn’t even say Rey feels soft for Kylo the first damn time she stabs and kills him before healing him. That to me seems a lot more like guilt to Leia her mentor over stabbing her son, and healing him for Leia’s sake than Rey actually wanting him alive. Maybe that’s just because from what I’ve seen, Daisy isn’t the biggest Reylo fan and just didn’t play it with her heart.

I’m glad Ben was redeemed, after what Sidious put that family through, I would have been upset with the last Skywalker descendant dying in Dark disgrace. But I’ve never been able to like his character really because they never fully let him be evil or an intriguing villain character, but they never showed him as good. I’m sorry, but the comics don’t do it for me either because it seems they’re just trying to slightly alter Anakin’s issues and problems and stick them onto him and go “see they’re the same!” and it just rings fake and irritating for me, and his sudden turnaround does not have the same weight behind it because I don’t even know what he really turned back to the Light for. Was it for Rey? That obsession didn’t look like love. Was it for Leia? We never got to see him speak two words to her. Was it for Han? Possibly?!?! That scene was not clear?!??!?!!?! It sure as hell wasn’t for Anakin or Luke because they weren’t allowed to interact with him at all. His return to the Light made no real sense because there wasn’t a clear motive besides “plot says so” and I Could Not See the logic in Rey suddenly wanting to make out with him, whether he saved her or not. Really the one good thing about it was that their lack of chemistry throughout the film means that if I ignore the fact that that kiss happened, it’s pretty easy to pretend they never got together ;D Plus, that Jedistormpilot hug at the very end tho, like I said, possibilities........

AND ANOTHER THING (god I really am a crotchety old lady), THE ABILITIES OF BEN AND REY TO BRING EACH OTHER BACK FROM DEATH. Rey effortlessly healed a straight saber wound through the gut that has fucking killed multiple trained Force users dead and even more non Force users, healed it in seconds. Now I probably seem like the biggest hypocrite here as I’m planning on having Anakin survive that same exact type of wound in a fic I’m writing (spoilers for those reading it lol but not really, did y’all actually think I was gonna kill him like that xD And that in no means says he’s gonna recover completely...), but the difference is that I’m not having him survive through someone else effortlessly curing the wound. If Ben survived that gut wound by healing himself, using his raw energy that all Skywalkers are supposed to have, I would be able to believe that. Self preservation will to live saved Vader on Mustafar, saved Luke, saved fucking Sidious.

But the matter is, if Rey was so powerful that she could just heal Ben from dying like that, why the fuck in the prequels is Anakin so panicked over his loved ones dying ever? He’s supposed to be the most powerful Force user in existence, more powerful than Rey, shouldn’t he have been able to do that for say, Shmi?? One might argue, “but Rey’s had training!” Who trained her? Leia, who learned from Luke, who learned from Obi Wan and Yoda, neither of whom knew how to fucking do that and pass it down, don’t tell me they did. The other option is that Rey did it untrained on natural talented instinct, which again, in that case, why couldn’t Anakin figure that out? Why didn’t any Jedi? Rey worked off of emotion healing Ben, Anakin should have been able to figure that out too. I will accept Ben’s energy transfer to Rey saving her after she died later as that literally killed him, that makes sense, trading energy at an equal point-- and further canonizes my theory that Sidious was able to steal and drain Padmé’s life energy through her bond with Anakin to save him after he burned, which was the actual reason Pads died in Ep 3. But Rey effortlessly bringing Ben back like that???? I just can’t, that just doesn’t work for canon for me. I’m sorry, but no.

My final issue is the sheer amount of ignoring this trilogy did of the prequels. I’ve already ranted about Anakin not showing up when he should and I will not repeat myself, this rant got long and I’m getting tired, but he should have been there, dammit. He really should have. Luke should have had more screentime. That bit at the end where Rey hears all of the other Jedi’s voices speaking to her??? I’m sorry, but that really does break canon! It was supposed to be only Qui Gon’s line, or those he taught and could pass it down, who could become Force Ghosts, and as delighted as I was to hear Kanan again and Windu and Luminara and everyone else, their voices should not have been there as they are not Force Ghosts! (and this is only partially me whinging over the fact that in my Force Ghost fic I have already stupidly proclaimed that only Qui Gon’s line has become ghosts and now I somehow have to fix that o_o)

(ALSO also the appearance of Ahsoka Tano amongst the voices means that she is dead which means they had the actual audacity to fucking kill her off OFFSCREEN with no explanation which grrrrrr)

One last whine about the romance, everything with Zorri Bliss and Poe seemed really forced and just another way for the script to blare out “HE’S NOT IN LOVE WITH FINN HE’S NOT HE’S STRAIGHT SUPER STRAIGHT LOOK LOOK LOOK”, tho Zorri’s character herself was fun without the forced romance.

Look, overall, I really liked the characters of the sequels, but I felt the plot was really poorly executed, and I really felt that this was not the “Skywalker Saga”. The Skywalkers felt cast aside and put in the background and ignored and totally invalidated. They were my favorites and I feel the narrative let them down and it makes my heart unhappy. It really feels like abusers like Palpatine and Kylo got to win at the expense of their victims, and that really makes my heart unhappy. That’s just my personal feelings. Nothing wrong if you did like it, but it’s just me. I miss my Skywalkers and their happy ending and I probably always will. I probs won’t ever really be satisfied with what happened to them, tho I will work my hardest on it. I guess that’s it.

#WHEW that took a while #like i said just my personal opinions please don't take it as an offense against you guys #morai musings #tros spoilers #tros #the rise of skywalker #the rise of skywalker spoilers #star wars spoilers #sw spoilers #star wars #sw #episode 9 #episode ix #episode ix spoilers

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tatooineknights · 6 years

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Luke Skywalker; The Legend, The Myth, The Man (The Last Jedi spoilers included):

“Who are you?”

This is one of the first questions that Luke Skywalker asks, standing in front of this strange and mysterious woman begging him to heed the call of action. He’s cloaked in darkness, standing at the edge of the shadowy confines of the tree and the lush light of the world outside. He asks this to learn more of the woman, curious of who she was and where she came from, but even more curious of how she found the great hero of the Rebel Alliance and wondering what she thought of him and why she sought him out. He was a legend, a myth – he knew that – and he knew she knew that.

A long time had passed since he was the young boy standing underneath the binary sunset, staring out into the stars and wondering what existed out there. Surely there was more for him than just being the farmer’s nephew - there were so many grand stories, of legends, of myths, of individuals that fought for the cause of good and faced off against the cause of evil.

Luke Skywalker, just like any of us, is an ordinary man with positive traits and negative flaws. He is kind and empathetic, embracing pacifism when he can, and a champion for all that is good. He is quick to protect and defend his friends, as seen by his willingness to save Leia on the Death Star and his multi-faceted plan to rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt. He is also willing to become a hero when it is necessary, such as when he mans an X-Wing for the first time to take down the Death Star and joins the Alliance. Luke is also an individual that wants to see the good in everyone. These are all traits that we embrace and idolize in Luke – traits that we might see in ourselves or ones that we wished we could have. After all, Skywalker is the very symbol of hope and peace in cinematic history. However, along with those traits, the flaws exist too; Luke has two major flaws that he struggles with throughout his life.

The first is his impulsiveness, which can be both a trait and weakness. Trying to rescue Leia off the Death Star even though he and Han had next to nothing to plan for, rushing off to an obvious trap in an attempt to save his friends, jumping to his death to avoid joining with Vader, turning himself in to Vader knowing it was a long shot at redeeming him. But there is other stuff too - attempting to strike down the (seemingly) defenseless and unarmed Emperor in hatred, inches away from murdering his father after he had been wounded, and yes, considering killing Ben for one second.

The second, and perhaps the most critical, is his difficulty in letting go. He has all these pre-conceived thoughts on the Force, of the Jedi, of his abilities, of his potential throughout The Empire Strikes Back. Yoda tells him he is wrong – he must unlearn. He must look past the physical world that he has formed in all his years as a farmer and as a soldier, see the teeming life that grows in the ordinarily simple trees and rocks and water, and he has great difficulty in doing that in this film. He is greatly confident in himself and his skills – not arrogance but perhaps a dash of hubris. The X-Wing is too big because that is how it appears to him in his mind; he needs his lightsaber and blaster to feel protected when entering the cave because he is dependent and reliant on them; he seeks out Vader not just to help save his friends, but because of a small flame of revenge for what happened to his father and Obi-Wan. He loses his hand due to this. But this flaw also works to his advantage in Return of the Jedi, where his refusal to let go of his father leads to Vader’s eventual redemption.

Unlike us, however, Luke was a Jedi Knight and son to one of the greatest Force users the entire universe had seen. This is both a heavy burden and a wonderful gift. It gave Luke the chance to do things far past the man he was, giving him the ability to help others and save the galaxy from tyranny. It also brought him great hardship.

If there is one constant in Luke’s life, despite all the development and growth he has achieved, he still struggles with these two flaws. Just in the time frame from Empire to Jedi, we see the reckless boy grow into a confident and cautious man. He’s calculated and in control of his emotions, guiding them to where he needs to be instead of letting them guide him down a path he cannot control. He has a great air of resolution as he peels off his cloak, revealing a sharp and stylish black outfit, the boyish grin replaced by the smile of a hardened individual and the twinkle in the eye of a mystical figure. This is the first time we see Luke in command of The Force and see him truly demonstrate his powers.

But underneath the resolve he had fostered, the wise Jedi still had cracks underneath the surface. After all, no matter how much we develop and changed, our most basic characterizations still exist, no? We might try to hide them, perhaps under our sleeve or buried deep in our heart, but they still exist. In this same movie, we see Luke give in to the Dark Side twice; both due to a mixture of rage and because of a nurturing loyalty he feels for his friends and family. We see him attempt to strike the Emperor down in hatred, we see him breathing down at his beaten father, rage swimming in his eyes.

That impulsiveness still existed despite the carefully crafted persona Luke had molded. Because despite the growth and change he had underwent, he is still the same man prone to the same mistakes. The difference here – and this is what we see from the end of Return of the Jedi onward – is that Luke becomes aware of this part of himself and rejects it. He has the lightsaber right up to Vader’s neck and pauses, his eyes glazing as he stares down at the man before him, seeing himself in defeated man. This is something he cannot do – perhaps Vader does deserve it, after all the pain and misery he has caused, but it isn’t Luke’s to decide. Despite it all, he loves his father. He wavers, holding the lightsaber, taking a few seconds to recollect himself before turning it off. He throws his lightsaber away and decides to stand firm in his resolve.

Now, nearly twenty years have passed, and Luke has grown stronger and more confident. He takes on a new batch of apprentices and prepares to rebuild the Jedi Order. Saving his father from the darkness and protecting his friends and sister from evil has made him feel safe, secure. He is accomplished and proud of his actions and wants to share that gift with the rest of the universe. There is only one problem – he senses something, dark and chaotic, sprouting from one of his apprentices. A threat to not just his order but his friends, his family, and to the galaxy at large.

This, he finds inside the head of his nephew.

What to do? All of a sudden those cracks begin to reform, reckless thoughts dancing and taunting him in the back of his head, as that happens to us all. He has a moment of weakness and activates his lightsaber and considers ending this threat – a threat that risked the lives of his disciples, his friends, Han, and Leia. But a second passes and he instantly realizes he was wrong. Just like the moment with his father in Return of the Jedi, he realizes that this is not something he can do.

The distrust in Ben Solo, soon to become Kylo Ren, had already been planted by Snoke. He was a ticking time bomb but Luke’s one second of weakness is what was needed for Ben to act. Luke becomes unconscious as he tries to subdue his nephew, trying to get him to understand what happened. But there is no time to explain – Luke’s world is shattered the minute he wakes up. His temple in flames, his apprentices murdered, and Kylo Ren created in its wake. He feels deep shame for Kylo’s creation, finding himself responsible for losing his nephew. He closes himself off. He hides.

But this doesn’t sound like the legend we build in our heads? Luke Skywalker was a hero, one of hope and light. Indeed, it was because of his hope for his nephew that he refused to act. Luke’s sorrow is not one of cowardice – it is because he still struggles to let go. What happened, in his head, is his greatest failure. His deep connection and sense of loyalty to his family causes him great heartbreak and sorrow.

There is the legend, Luke Skywalker, and then there is the man. They are two similar people but they are not quite the same. One is a perfect beacon of heroism and the other is more flawed, aware of the myths and swirling Force that surrounds his very name. Both are people desperately needed and both serve different functions. Due to Luke’s blame, he feels like he is unable to become the legend again, and unable to teach the woman at his steps. How can he become a teacher when he made a mistake that cost him his nephew?

Yoda reminds Luke, and us, that failure is what makes the greatest teacher. What he sees as his greatest mistakes are the best learning tool for both his students, and himself. He has tied himself down to a legacy that consumed and trapped him, chained, in many ways similar to his father, to his past. His former master uses this opportunity to free Luke from that by destroying the sacred tree, freeing him from that past. For the wisdom that he gave to Rey, both his teachings and his knowledge of the Jedi’s failure, will inspire a new age of Jedi Knights.

Let go.

He lets go of his fears, refills the cracks that formed in the past six years, and finds peace with himself. His legacy is all but assured, his confidence at an all-time high. Luke becomes a bastion of Force energy as he molds his image onto a planet lightyears away, showing us the greatest showcase of Force skills, becoming the legend once more as he faces his nephew. But just as Luke acted before in the past, he is unable to truly hurt his nephew. His love for his family is as strong as it ever was – and instead chooses to apologize to Kylo and himself, freeing himself and finally letting go. This allows his sister to escape and his Jedi Order to survive – the Skywalker’s live on and his legacy, the Jedi Knight Rey, will live on.

He collapses under heavy strain. This was the most clear and poignant moment in Luke’s life; just as he forgave his father all those years ago, Luke finally forgave himself. A second sun appears in the horizon, a binary sunset forming in the distance, reminding Luke of how it all began. How he started as this passionate young boy, desperately searching for adventure and a family and a legacy, and found himself completely at peace and fulfilled. He had went on the greatest adventures anyone could imagine, he found family that cared and needed him, and created a legacy that would live on for generations.

Luke Skywalker’s story is a human one, full of wonderful and tragic moments, that reminds us that our traits and flaws are always there and can both save the people we love and accidentally send people to darkness. It is a story about forgiving those who have hurt us - including ourselves - and finding peace with that. It is also a story about the expectations that we put on ourselves, on our fathers, on our nephews, on our legends, and on our hearts.

And so Luke does let go – he becomes one with The Force, his physical body collapsing into the great robe that spun around him and fading into the light, becoming the great legend the galaxy needed. He does not die in this moment, but rather, he becomes a being more powerful than anyone could possibly imagine. He achieves total balance and ascends into the mystical energy above. Luke Skywalker, the man, has completely finished his journey and became Luke Skywalker, the legend, the myth, that the galaxy, and us, so desperately needs.

#luke skywalker #star wars #the last jedi #the last jedi spoilers #tlj spoilers #sw edit

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iabsolutelyresentthiswebsite · 6 years

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The Last Jedi Sin #12

I was hesitant to name this post this title because I know how easily it turns people off to reading the post, but honestly, that is what this is and honestly, this one is really worth the read.

It is The Last Jedi Sin #12.

12. Plot-Driven Characters

Up until yesterday night, I didn’t know how to describe what was bothering me so much about TLJ in the respect I will be talking about in a few. It was just “wrong” and “unconvincing” because honestly, what Rian chose to do to these characters is rarely done.

Why? you ask

because this isn’t how you write, Rian!

When I was a Senior in HS, I had skipped a grade, but was taking college classes nonetheless. One of the classes I was taking was English 101 from a local college for dual high school and college credit. At the same time, I was taking English 102 from another local college. One of the first things I learned in my college classes, after y’know...being told them for years, was that good stories are driven by strong characters. This was reinforced when I elected to take Screenwriting 101 when I was a Sophomore in college. The plot is something that happens as a result of what a character does or fails to do. Of course, sometimes you have to push a character to push forward the plot...that’s a necessity of character development, but it has to feel natural and the plot has to feel like it was meant to happen. It has to make sense. The build-up to the climax has to feel as seamless as possible and plot is really to bend around the characters...

Not the other way around.

Did Rian not get that memo? Did like...no one tell him?

What bothers me so much, and is, in fact, The Last Jedi Sin #12 is that the whole movie of The Last Jedi is the plot driving the characters and not the characters driving the plot. It’s hard to describe, but I'm going to do my very best.

In The Original Trilogy, the protagonists and antagonists have a certain dynamic. Vader and Sidious have a master-apprentice relationship, but almost like equals. Luke, Han, and Leia have the friendship dynamic. Luke and Vader, however, have a very different dynamic because they are father and son and are the “Functional Skywalkers” of the Trilogy. (This is not meant to sideline Leia...it’s just that her dynamic with her father was not established until late into VI so the dynamic was overshadowed by Luke and Vader’s that was established as early as the end of IV, but formally established in the middle of V.)

Vader and Sidious wanted to control the whole galaxy and worked their asses off to destroy the Resistance. Luke, Leia, and Han were members of the Resistance and Resistance heroes; Luke was a Jedi and was bestowed a legacy upon him. The dynamic that really pushed forward the entire saga was the relationship of Luke Skywalker to Darth Vader.

The plot of the entire Star Wars OT was to redeem Anakin Skywalker, establish Luke Skywalker as a hero, and bring balance to the galaxy, all of which was accomplished, but could only have been accomplished through the dynamic that was Luke being the son of Darth Vader, taking the legacy of his father upon himself, believing in the goodness of his father, and being the strong, emotional, loving, faithful character he was. It could only have been accomplished because Darth Vader still had a heart and cared for his son more than he ever could care about power.

The entirety of the Prequels was the fall of Anakin Skywalker. The PT was, truthfully, so character-driven, it may have been character-driven to a fault because they were so focused on getting Anakin’s descent to the Dark Side satisfying and “right” that other things seemed to be pushed to the background. The main villains in the PT weren’t the most intimidating, except for Palpatine/Sidious, dialogue was clunky and awkward, but for the most part, the Prequels did a decent job at clearly displaying the internal struggle of Anakin Skywalker to remain good in the face of his dark tendencies, intense emotions he couldn’t control, and disdain for the Jedi Council.

Even TFA was a pretty character-driven story. JJ knew what to do, as much as few have faith in him.

The Force really Awakened when Finn saved Poe from the clutches of Kylo Ren and chose to finish Poe’s mission by bringing BB-8 back to the Resistance. Along the way, he met Rey, a girl whose emotions were very strong, had a very hard life, and wanted nothing more than a family. TFA repeatedly reminded the audience that Rey needed to return to Jakku because of her family, but because she found a family in the Resistance, she went full speed ahead into helping them and finding the belonging she sought ahead of her. Kylo Ren’s intentions in the movie were clear: to find Luke Skywalker and presumably to kill him. Why? We allegedly find out why in TLJ, but it’s unbelievable at best. He also desired to “finish what his grandfather started”, which was always a very confusing motivation because we all know Anakin Skywalker defected and murdered the Emperor as his last act in his life.

I digress.

How does TLJ differ from the OT, PT, and TFA?

Aside from the fact nothing in the movie should have logically happened, which I keep saying again and again...things just inexplicably happen to these characters and they just respond to it.

Like, the Resistance is suddenly on its last legs, so now Poe is a trigger-happy fly-boy and causes the death of lots of people.

Rose Tico sees Finn leaving the Resistance cruiser, so she tases him with no questions asked, thus resulting in this stupid side-quest on Canto Bight.

Rey hands Luke his lightsaber and he rejects it (which he never would have done), so she follows him around for days with literally nothing happening for the most part.

Kylo Ren and Rey have an inexplicable Force-Bond.

Like absolutely, a lot of those things happened because of what a character did, but these things just happen to these people. They react to it and we move on from it. It kinda dies as a concept as soon as someone reacts and by the end of the movie, the characterizations of all of the characters are basically unrecognizable, there was no plot, and we’re right back where we started...a return to normalcy.

Like Finn is exactly where he would have been without the trip to Canto Bight. Poe is exactly the same character. Rose Tico had little to no characterization in the first place. Kylo Ren is just as dark, if not a little darker. Luke’s character was assassinated. And Rey’s character regressed. Like...there was no point to this movie.

I said at the beginning that “strong characters drive a plot”. With what was just said and is true, none of those characters are strong, especially the one that so desperately needs to be- Rey. Rian Johnson altered their characters from TFA and changed them so that it would fit his narrative. That is an astoundingly stupid move. Because not only are these characters now weak, but they are not even themselves anymore! So these characters, who we didn’t come to see, are not experiencing any character development, in a movie with no plot, are doing nothing. I’m literally watching a movie about nothing with nothing happening!

The Last Jedi was boring in every single way but visually because there was no plot. There was no character development. There was no point except super cool visuals.

What drives a story is character development and a convincing plot based off of the characters, neither of which The Last Jedi had.

It has tHiNgS happen, but nothing that actually pushed the trilogy-long plot.

A lot of stuff happened in the Empire Strikes Back, like Lando in Cloud City with Darth Vader, Luke continues to train with Yoda and learn the ways of the Force, Han and Leia’s relationship happens, Han gets frozen in carbonite and given to Jabba, and whatnot. But what pushes the plot forward was the reveal that the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker’s father, is still alive as Darth Vader. But had Lando not kinda “sold out” his friends to Vader, which led to Han being frozen in carbonite, Luke would have never left Jedi training to save his friends and fight his father, which led to the reveal that he was his father. Most of things that happen in this movie support the advancement of the trilogy-plot.

BUT NOTHING HAPPENED IN THE LAST JEDI.

The reveal, which could have been the turning point in the movie, making Rey a Skywalker or even a Kenobi, was shot to shit and actually regressed the plot because just when we thought we were getting somewhere, after the shitty central conflict of the Resistance running out of fuel and the slow-motion cat and mouse chase, Finn, Rose, and DJ’s failure and sell-out, we got literally nothing. Nothing supported any kind of plot because there was no plot to begin with. Rian was- objectively- trying to rip off ESB, but failed because he so desperately wanted to subvert fan expectations that he actually sacrificed his plot and characters so that he could be “edgy” and “different”.

Just when the Kylo-Rey dynamic was beginning to really be grounded and justified, Rian decided “hell fucking no” so whatever plot he was trying to go for, whatever character development he was trying to push forward, whatever he was trying to have happen, literally crumbled in front of the audience’s eyes.

The whole reason ESB was so good and the dynamic going into ROTJ was high-octane was because of the dynamic between father-son Vader-Luke. There were high stakes in place, there were risks involved, there was faith being tested with the legitimate possibility for validation, and Vader’s possibility of redemption. Luke and Vader’s lives were in jeopardy because of their relationship.

There is no dynamic between Rey and Kylo because they, yeah maybe sorta understand each other a little better, but they still hate each other. They allegedly have no relationship with one another whatsoever, so where are the stakes?! Kylo betrayed Rey after getting her hopes up. Like I honestly don’t know what to say about this.

I fear for the franchise because I don’t know how it can be saved at this point.

Rian Johnson wrote not only himself, but JJ Abrams into a corner.

You can’t write a compelling narrative where nothing happens and the characters simply respond to what happens to them. You can’t write a compelling narrative based on no stakes and no character development. People get bored when nothing happens and nothing progresses. I’ve had children tell me that TLJ “finished the same way the last movie did”. If children, Disney’s target market, can see it, that’s catastrophic.

This isn’t how writing works, Rian.

#the last jedi sins #tlj hate #anti rian johnson #writing #star wars #the last jedi #empire strikes back

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jayne-hecate-writer · 6 years

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Controversial thoughts

Some of you are going to find what I say here to be down right offensive, some of you are likely to be so angry as to scrap this post before you have even got to the end, but here goes... I really like The Last Jedi and so should you.

Before I explain my thinking, let me just point out that this article is likely to contain spoilers to the whole franchise, including the most recent release, Solo, so be warned before you proceed into this.

I have been watching the films again on DVD and I have noticed a few things that had not previously occurred to me and I am tying these in, along with things I have seen discussed on Youtube and in articles on other forms of social media.

Child Abuse and religious zealotry is everywhere:- My first thoughts are that the Star Wars universe does not like children very much. There are so many slaves and orphans among children in the Star Wars Universe, that it borders on being utterly despicable. Of all of the characters we encounter, the only ones shown on film to have loving and supportive family are the few various Royals. Even the gentle and loving Luke Skywalker has a tempestuous relationship with his Uncle Owen that borders on some seriously controlling behaviour. Later in the film, what family he has left are brutally murdered, leaving him with significant levels of survivor guilt and played nicely into the hands of an elderly religious fanatic, who drags him off to fight in a war. How old is Luke at this point? He is a teenager, a child in everything but name.

We then find out that Luke’s estranged father is a genocidal maniac, who also happens to be a religious fanatic and deeply opposed to the religion of the old man who it turns out, not only abandoned him to burn to death in lava in his own youth, but has stolen his children from him. When Luke wont change his allegiance, his father attempts to murder him. We get a final act of redemption but Luke still finds himself alone once again, having been indoctrinated into a religious cult that demands celibacy of its converts, the likes of which the Catholic church would be proud of and we all know how that ended for so many innocent children. May the force protect all of those children who were ripped away from their families so as to be indoctrinated into the Jedi faith. We will never know how many of them were abused by the Jedi faithful once they got there. We know that significant numbers of them are murdered by one of their own or even killed in battle as they learn to become child soldiers.

In Rogue One, we see more child soldiers, more abuse victims and more adults filled with trauma and damage. It is also a truly remarkable film in that every character we love is killed off, including the religious zealot who though completely blind, walks across an open battlefield chanting his faith.

Moving into episodes seven, eight and even nine (which at the time of writing is still to come out), we see similar patterns. In Rey, Finn and Kylo Ren we once again we see children that have been abused and failed by the adults around them. Rey is forced to work in slavery for starvation rations, after her alcoholic parents sold her for booze money. I dread to think how and why as a pretty young girl with no one to protect her, she learned to fight as well as she has.

Finn was abducted as an infant and forced to become a child soldier, a life that psychological studies here in our own universe has shown to have terrible consequences for the survivors that make it to adulthood. You can see written through out his arc, just how damaged he is by this experience.

Ben Solo was abandoned by his father Han, who was too damaged by his own childhood, to be able to communicate with his son. The boy was then sent away by his mother Leia, to be trained in the ways of a religious cult. Once there, the only family that this lonely and frightened young boy has, tried to murder him! Is it any wonder that he turned to the Dark Side and the abusive relationship and religious mania of Snoke? As Ben Solo becomes Kylo Ren, he is more and more eaten up inside by the religious cult that is Snoke’s dark faith and he is manipulated into becoming a murderer and despot.

When Rey joins the resistance, she is barely out of her childhood and she too becomes yet another child warrior and she is told that by an accident of birth she is destined to join the religious cult of the Jedi. Does she have a choice in this? It appears not to be the case.

When you look at her relationship with Finn, he finds in her the first person in his life to offer him any form of kindness away from the military and more out of his own traumatic experience, he begins to love his newly found friend, to the point that he tries to drag her away from danger. Of course the religious mania rises up once again and Kylo attempts to murder both, before Rey vanishes off around the galaxy to find a religious zealot to save them all from another bunch of religious maniacs.

The whole Star Wars universe is built on child slavery, child suffering and a huge amount of loneliness, which is heavily buried in religious zealotry. Tp me this is utterly heart breaking. With the release of Solo, we once again see more children kept in slavery for the labour they can provide to a crime syndicate. Han can only escape this terrible life by joining the army, which he later deserts when he realises that he is basically cannon fodder in a cause he does not believe in. He is captured and imprisoned for desertion, where he meets his soon to be lifelong friend, Chewbacca. Chewiewas is held in terrible, if not horrific conditions where he is forced to feed upon the bodies of other prisoners just to survive. His humanity or rather his sentience is ignored and we discover that his family are being used as slave labour. The whole Star Wars Universe is just awful and it is a wonder that any of them actually managed to survive childhood to become the damaged and traumatised adults that they later become.

So why is the Last Jedi so much better than people think?

Simple... Because in this story, a group of child abuse survivors try to make the universe better for those who come after them.

Despite Kylo Ren’s trained murderous impulses and traumatic child soldier life (that included having to murder his own father to win the approval of his mentor and reinforce his distance from his family), even he cannot bring himself to murder his own mother.

Poe Dameron learns that the myth of heroic death truly does not in reality exist. He grows as a person and learns that the lives of his friends and colleagues do actually matter, losing the bleak and destructive nihilism that endangers all around him.

Finn finds that he has inner resilience that he did not know was there and as he finds this, he helps yet another lonely adult, child abuse survivor. If you look at the sad life of Rose, you will see that she is the only survivor of her entire family and it was her older sister who basically raised her for the last few years of her childhood, as they clung together hoping not to be murdered. Finn and Rose find each other and in doing so begin to support each other, to overcome the psychological damage that they have suffered at the hands of others.

Rey finds inside her self the strength of will to let go the anger she feels for having been abandoned by her parents as a young child, although she replaces them in her life with religious zealotry which on reflection, may not be all that healthy.

The character of DJ points out that the continuous state of war is destroying both sides and the only winners are those businesses that sell weapons to both sides. He is also one of the very few people in the whole galaxy who is prepared to admit that he can be wrong about things. His enlightenment almost goes unregarded and yet at no time does he actively murder anyone. He is a peaceful man who is just trying to survive in a hateful galaxy.

As for Luke, he is the only truly remarkable character. Luke seeks and finally finds redemption as he forgives himself the terrible things that he has done in the name of his religion and in doing so, sacrifices himself so that his last remaining family and friends can escape being murdered. His last act was so noble and so brave, it truly showed him to be filled with love and compassion for all forms of life. He also tried to bring an end to the religious order that has caused so much strife through out the galaxy. Of them all, he is the only to understand the true legacy of the Jedi.

With this much pain and suffering going on, is it any wonder that Luke, Leia, Kylo, Rey, Finn, Rose and Poe all suffer with some degree of trauma induced sadness or mental health condition? The fact that any one of them can act with any degree of kindness towards another being, when the Galaxy is run by a series of evil despots and each of them has a significant history of loss and abuse, is frankly amazing.

Finn running away from the war to save his only true friend from an evil dictatorship that has sworn to murder them all is not only brave, but an act of love. Rey can see the harm done to Kylo and she thinks that her kindness and compassion can save him.

There is however one character that remains unrepentant, selfish and even racist. C3PO... He who cannot abide Jawas, he who sees Wookies as less than people. Yes, C3PO harbours, if you go through all of the movies, views that even fascist groups would find distasteful. At no point in the saga does C3PO seek to atone for his hateful words and deeds. If anything, he continues though out to be condescending towards all forms of organic life, blatantly derisive of his friends and rather quick to commit acts of cowardice and betrayal, the likes of which are only equalled by Captain Phasma. At the end of the movie, when Luke leaves the base to face down Kylo Ren, he turns to C3PO and does not actually speak to him. Why is this? I wonder if this is because Luke knows that C3PO is really a colossal golden bigot!

The back story of Phasma by the way is once again of childhood suffering and military service. She is yet another child victim in the Star Wars universe, it is all so painfully sad.

What makes The Last Jedi special is that at last, many of those responsible for terrible acts against children are finally given some degree of payback for the harm they have caused. At the very end, it leaves us with some hope that the children will rise up and bring about a new order of peace and an end to childhood suffering. To be honest, after all of the abuse, all of the suffering and all of the enforced child labour, it was nice to see some kids working out that they have the strength to rebel against those who would harm them.

The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson is among the first to acknowledge the suffering of children in the Star Wars universe. Even in the kids TV shows such as Rebels, the orphan Ezra is turned into a child soldier and religious zealot. The Clone Wars series saw many more child soldiers indoctrinated into the Jedi order and sent to die in battle. So well done Rian Johnson, I really enjoyed your movie.

By looking at social media though, it appears that I am alone among a sea of miserable voices.

Finally, my fellow Star Wars fans, when the stars of the movies we love so dearly are forced to to retreat from social media because of the bullying actions of a significant number of fans, maybe it is time that we took a long hard look at ourselves? After all, it is only a fucking movie and a fucking kids movie at that. Disney may not have the best record, but they are giving us something that would otherwise have died back in the eighties

#star wars #the last jedi #the force awakens #a new hope #star wars prequels #star wars sequels #bullying #child soldiers #Star Wars toxic fans #toxic fandom #I love Star Wars

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blue-mint-winter · 6 years

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Star Wars doesn’t learn from the past mistakes: LOTF and Sequel Trilogy

I already talked about how The Last Jedi is the opposite extreme of Legacy of the Force book series, now belonging to the non-canon Legends. There is a similarity in premise of both of them - set about 30 years after OT, a son of Han and Leia fashions himself after Vader and kills a family member to complete his turn to the Dark Side. This is a very general resemblance and the details of the circumstances in both stories are vastly different, from the villain’s motivation to the series attitude towards Jedi. To me however, it’s absolutely startling how sequel trilogy makes the same mistakes that LOTF made.

1. Round Robin

Both sequel trilogy and LOTF are passed from author to author. In LOTF there was an attempt at a general outline agreed between the writers, while Sequels don’t even have that, but in both cases this form of storytelling leads to big inconsistencies in the works, especially in characterization. TLJ doesn’t feel as much of a sequel to TFA as its own movie. Rian Johnson admitted there was no agreed plot and that he wrote his own screenplay before he even saw TFA. In LOTF’s case may I remind you all Karen “never read a Star Wars book that she didn’t write” Traviss and Troy “forced prequelization which makes no sense in 30 ABY and total disregard of EU continuity” Denning? Every author is pushing their own vision without much care to making the whole a cohesive story.

2. Unlimited Power

The authors in both got handed a lot of “creative liberty”. Rian Johnson said how surprised he was at his freedom to do whatever he wanted. Even if he faced opposition about some of his choices he could safely disregard it. The Story Group which was supposed to make sure the canon is unified and everything fits together completely dropped the ball. With LOTF, it was basically a Troy Denning show with his vision being the deciding factor, further reinforced by the fact that he always got to write the third, ending book in every cycle of the nine-book series. Many times I wondered if anyone was reading these books before allowing them to be published. Anyway, in both cases it looks like TPTB just told the authors: “make up some shit, I don’t care, you can go nuts”. And they did.

3. Plot over character

I mentioned inconsistency in characterization, right? So in TLJ it’s the most evident, because it looks like all the characters took a stupid pill so that the contrived plot could even take place. There’s nothing organic about their behaviour, they just acted as they needed for the plot to happen. And this is the exact same thing that happened ALL the time in LOTF, constantly. Jacen’s turn to the Dark Side which wouldn’t have happened if his character arc from NJO wasn’t conveniently forgotten and Mara’s actions leading to her death are the prime examples.

4. Characters as mouthpieces of the authors

One of the greatest sins is when you know the character wouldn’t say something, because it doesn’t suit their personality or their knowledge. Instead they act as the author’s mouthpieces, spouting the author’s views. Karen Traviss did that regularly, making the characters worship Mandalorians or say anti-Jedi propaganda. Troy Denning liberally used Luke, Han or Leia to condemn “Jacen”, also his pet character Saba was his mouthpiece. In TLJ, it’s clear that when Kylo tells Rey “you’re nothing, what did you think? that your parents were important? They were just some random drunks”, he’s not really speaking to Rey who never said she thought that her parents were important. Kylo was obviously Rian Johnson’s avatar speaking straight to the audience, mocking them for having fallen for the “Rey parentage theories” trap. Many times when Luke Skywalker opened his mouth to mock the Jedi, his past, being a hero and everything that was ever good in Star Wars, it didn’t feel like something the real Luke would ever say. That was Rian Johnson speaking through him.

5. Destruction of the old without giving anything new in return

In both cases, there’s a deliberate cannibalization of what had been built up in previous works without offering anything new in return. LOTF destroyed the EU established characters like Jacen and Mara, among others, to prop up Big Three, so they could stay main characters forever. Even the covers showed them much younger looking than they should have been at this point in their lives. Unfortunately, the values and core messages of OT were also lost to this destruction. In Sequels, we have right off the bat the denial of the final OT victory with the return of Empire as the First Order. The New Republic we’ve never ever seen is destroyed and the characters of Big Three are regressed, ignoring their character arcs from OT. This trend was continued in TLJ with its nihilistic outlook that nothing matters, for example Jedi training doesn’t matter because Rey can do anything without it anyway. Established rules of the universe don’t matter, which invalidates all the continuity, because if ghost Yoda can shoot lightning why didn’t he do that to Palpatine before? Both LOTF and Sequels really love to bring back those old characters and just kill them - see Ackbar or Coruscant World Brain (dhuryam), Han and Lumiya. Instead of building the new, the series are more concerned with bringing back the old so they can destroy it. And it’s not good and leads nowhere.

#anti tlj #anti lotf #sw meta #star wars eu

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britesparc · 6 years

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My Unpopular Star Wars Opinion: Or, Why The Phantom Menace is Better Than The Force Awakens

Was it, though?

Were the Star Wars prequels – The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith, whose vary names have become entertainment-industry watchwords for disappointment – really, truly better than the current Disney-owned era of Star Wars, which so far has produced two widely-praised billion-dollar-grossing movies, and is about to unleash a third, about which expectation is as high as a city in the clouds? Can I really think that, for reals?

Well, yes and no.

Let’s get the obvious things out of the way: there were some very poor decisions made during the Prequel Era. Let’s not pick over the corpse of George Lucas’ story choices – the whys and wherefores of virgin births, whiny antagonists, and Jar Jar Binks – and focus instead on the filmmaking technique employed. The dialogue is wooden. The camerawork is rigid. The performances are flat. The pacing is all over the place: in Phantom, the much-vaunted podrace goes on for at least two laps too long; indeed, the whole Tatooine section of the film shoots the legs out from under the momentum. Prior to that it had been a breakneck chase from overwhelming odds, our heroes escaping Naboo by the skin of their teeth; as soon as they break down on Tatooine, they’re sheltering from sandstorms and going gambling. And, of course, there’s the whole “taxation of outlying star systems is in dispute” nonsense: doesn’t quite grab you as quickly as “it is a period of civil war”, does it?

But there’s still something about them that feels Star Wars-y. There’s still a sense, even though I know Lucas was making it all up as he went along, that this fits into the universe correctly (I mean, he was making everything up as he went along, which is why Leia kisses Luke in Empire). There’s a cyclical nature to how the prequels marry with the original trilogy that’s about more than a visit to Tatooine or the presence of a Mandalorian bounty hunter. The first films in both trilogies are, in essence, about innocence: a simple quest by simple people to prevent an immediate danger (removing the blockade of Naboo versus destroying the Death Star); the second films complicate things by splitting up our heroes on separate quests before uniting them for a finale that feels, at best, like a pyrrhic victory; before resolving their respective trilogies in an all-bets-are-off finale beset with divided loyalties and a dangerous Sith Lord. Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi – even their titles are darkly mirrored – both deal explicitly with Vader and his relationship to the Force; he wrestles with his emotions and his commitment to his Order, the love of his wife compelling him to commit dark acts before finally the love of his son pulls him back into the light. The Force Awakens, whilst it does mirror aspects of Star Wars, feels more like a greatest hits package; we have another callow youth from a desert planet on a hero’s journey, another aged mentor, another cocky pilot, another tragic death, and another large object exploding in space, but it feels more consciously designed. A box-ticking exercise, rather than a thematic resonance. Or maybe it’s just because the iconography is so similar.

The First Order is basically the Empire, and the Resistance is basically the Rebellion. There are TIE Fighters and X-Wings. There are Stormtroopers and helmeted good-guy soldiers. There are English-accented characters walking around in SS outfits being glowery and evil. Whilst I’d never attempt to suggest that Amidala’s chrome-plated ship, or the wing-walking droid craft, were as iconic as what we got forty years ago, to go back to the same well is disappointing.

My wider issue, however, is how the new era seems to disregard somewhat the mythological aspects of Star Wars. I guess I’ve only seen one film in the trilogy, but despite the palette-swap nature of its craft and locations, it does feel markedly different to the Star Wars that came before. There’s a sense of destiny in Star Wars, a “balance of the Force” that was hinted at in the original trilogy and made explicit in the prequels; the yoke of inevitability pulling characters in directions that they may not wish to go. The subtle, underplayed, and often-ignored theme in the prequels of once-noble institutions slowly crumbling into irrelevance and becoming the very thing they hated speaks to the wider issue of the “will of the Force”, of the Chosen One appearing to bring balance. That Chosen One is assumed to be Anakin, and we’re left to interpret for ourselves whether the balance was actually achieved; is it when he kills the Younglings? Or is it when he topples the Emperor? This thread ties the first six films together to produce something grander and more metaphorical, even if it is a case of Lucas essentially retconning to some degree his original intentions from the seventies and eighties. The Force Awakens feels a bit different, like the preoccupations of the previous films are gone; there’s a darkness to everything creeping in around the edges, complicating matters. Whether this makes for a better narrative is moot: what I’m saying is it makes it feel less of a whole with the rest of Star Wars.

This is exacerbated by the time-jump. Obviously we were always going to go 30-40 years ahead of Jedi. But so much has happened in that time. In the 20 years between Sith and Hope, the galaxy might be fundamentally different, but from a narrative view, nothing has changed: the Empire is still victorious and the Jedi still in exile, just like we left them. But in between Jedi and Force, we’ve seen Luke’s attempt at training new Jedi falter, Ben Solo fall to the Dark Side, the rise of the First Order, and the formation of the Resistance, to say nothing of the yet-unrevealed histories of Snoke and Rey. The film features flashbacks and a cliffhanger finale. It just feels odd, out of place, not at one with the cyclical nature of Star Wars. And, furthermore, it undoes so much of the happy ending of Jedi: despite the deaths of Vader and Palpatine, the Dark Side rises again, there's a new Empire, Luke goes into exile (apparently convinced that the Jedi as an institution is a bad thing) and Han and Leia split up. It's sad! It's tragic! And whilst I'm fine with all that happening in Star Wars, I think it should happen on-camera. Not in flashbacks or spin-offs, it should be part of the saga. To introduce it as backstory complicates the rhythm of the films. It feels less of a whole. It feels like a sequel, not the next episode. And from the trailers and pre-release hype of The Last Jedi, it seems like this is the new normal for Star Wars.

None of this makes the Disney films bad. In fact, going back to the popular iconography of the original trilogy makes perfect sense. Having the heroes still be a scrappy insurgency helps us root for them. Giving us a mysterious backstory to uncover is compelling. But my argument is, all these elements feel discordant with what's gone before. The prequels, for all their faults technically and narratively, helped weave a mythological tapestry for Star Wars that is being undone by the new films. I feel they're remaining too wedded to familiar imagery and story points, whilst simultaneously moving too far away from the more conceptual, mythological underpinnings of Star Wars as a fable. I kind of wish that Lucas had completed his mooted final trilogy – his own VII, VIII, and IX – before selling to Disney (especially if he took more of an executive role, as he did with Empire and Jedi, and left the writing and directing to others). Taken as individual films, maybe they wouldn't be as good as what we've got – because despite everything I've said here, I really do think Force Awakens and especially Rogue One are pretty tremendous – but at least we'd have Lucas' complex, contradictory, rhythmically compelling vision completed. Of course, then we wouldn't have Star Wars' new Holy Trinity of Rey, Finn, and Poe – perhaps the Disney era's most important additions to the overall mythos.

Look, Star Wars is complicated. George Lucas is complicated, and his legacy is complicated. I'm chuffed to bits he sold to Disney – not because DIsney is the be-all and end-all, but because they've proven their ability to marry corporate aims with creative excellence; look at Pixar and Marvel especially. The Force Awakens has issues but it's still a great, crowd-pleasing, immensely successful movie, and already we've got BB-8, porgs, and broadsword lightsabers sitting in the popular imagination in ways that, arguably, nothing in the prequels ever really managed (apart from Darth Maul and his double-ended saber, I guess). And again, the progressive casting of the new films is long overdue and utterly fantastic. I'm still really, really excited about The Last Jedi, and Abrams' Episode IX, and Johnson's new non-Skywalker trilogy. But I can't help feeling like something quintessentially Star Wars has been lost; perhaps it's an oddness, a willingness to duck when everyone is expecting a jump. Perhaps it was Lucas' own obsessions and interests that fuelled the franchise, that gave us everything from the sublime (Vader, the Death Star, lightsabers, Yoda) to the ridiculous (midichlorians, Gungans, Ewoks, Watto). Perhaps the new films are better films, but in my heart of hearts, I'm not sure I can love them quite as much. Maybe The Last Jedi will end up being the best Star Wars experience this side of Knights of the Old Republic, but it will still feel slightly separate. Further tales. An imaginary story. The expanded universe.

Maybe it's me. Maybe it's just knowing that Lucas had more stories he wanted to tell and never got the chance. Maybe it's because I've always been a lot warmer towards the prequels than most. Maybe things will shift with time – as more films come out in the new universe, with more characters, then this will start to feel like the status quo, the new normal. I hope so, because I love Star Wars – indeed, it's worth repeating, I think the new films are excellent, and are better films, better made films, than all three of the prequels. But although my head believes we're in a golden age of Star Wars not seen since the early 80s, my heart has yet to be convinced.

Anyway. I'll let you know if I still feel the same way after The Last Jedi...

#movies #films #star wars #George Lucas #the last jedi #star wars the last jedi

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aethuviel · 6 years

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The Politically Correct Jedi

So here will be my thoughts on The Last Jedi. Spoilers galore!

1. Porgs, Luke milking the sea-sow, Leia's Mary Poppins-moment... common complaints, but I actually liked all of these. I loathed the porgs months ago for being so unoriginal (bring back Terryll Whitlatch), but they were cute and fine with me. Unlike some, I realize Star Wars is a family film and has always had something made to pander to ten-year olds (Ewoks, Jar Jar, even Darth Maul).

The Luke-milking-that-thing-scene and going fishing... I just don't understand the problem with, it's just a detail you either like or don't like, not some huge character or story problem, and I really liked seeing his "off-grid" life (being a big fan of such things myself, and hopefully going to move to Kerry, Ireland, just where his island is located).

Leia surviving space by Force-flying was perfectly fine with me. It may have looked a bit silly, and she should never have survived contact with the vacuum of space, but Star Wars has never been about hard sci-fi anyway, and at least they put SOME of her Force talent in there.

2. The donkey-dogs (fathier is the in-universe name). That was some cool creature design to me, I really liked them, if not what they did with them (more below).

I WANT ONE

3. I loved Luke’s island. So sick of the desert planets (Jakku was just discount Tatooine), I'm very glad they didn't simply stick Luke on Dagobah, but gave us a fresh habitat.

4. It is a fairly okay, enjoyable movie, to see once or twice in the theater, especially if you're not a SW nerd and don't care either way what happens in the story or with the characters. Cheaply written and quickly forgotten, like a quick flick for one night, but it was enjoyable.

A common complaint is also the "these rich people are selling arms to both sides". I actually liked that when watching the movie, because that's something most people today still don't know, let alone that it has been going on for a very long time, and I don't think it's "forced preaching" like some other stuff (more below), but rather takes the film out of the "simple action" some prequel-bashers seem to want.

(Prequel bashers hate the prequels because it was "so political", but really it wasn't. It just explained the backstage of war, which is what goes on between leaders, politicians and bureaucrats, rather than simply battlefield action. THIS film was truly political with subjective political messages, and more on that below.)

And now for the less nice things. I will be talking about the trilogy overall too, so things from TFA will be mentioned.

1. The complete betrayal of character and story. Rule number one for a writer is that you A) Give your readers (or viewers) promises, and then B) You fulfill those promises. The Last Jedi did not do this in any way.

Snoke was dangled in front of us with huge excitement. "Who is this? Who is he? Where is he from? Oooh, we can't wait to see all your fan theories!" and two years later "Aha! He's NOBODY and this guy who we built up as the biggest badass, more terrible and powerful than Darth Sidious, gets taken out completely predictably in the lamest fashion possible!"

Rey, as well, was dangled in front of us like "She's the most special girl ever, everyone knows she's SO special, her parents and origin is SUCH a mystery, and we can't wait to show it to you!" Two years later "...AAAND she's a nobody." Like blowing up a balloon and pricking it with a needle, complete with fart sounds as it flies across the room.

2. I couldn't give a crap about (most of) the new characters. Rey is a total Mary Sue. I could develop this further but this would turn into a huge essay if I did. Finn at least has some SLIGHT personality, but he seems to be mostly there for diversity points, and goes off on a completely pointless sidequest in this film.

Rose... need I say more. A chubby Asian chick with absolutely no personality, who falls in love with a guy she’s only known 48 hours (or less), and stops him from doing his one brave and character-saving act (since he’s mostly been a coward inserted for PC:ness and cheap jokes), by crashing into his speeder. Why is this girl in the military, if she can’t stand seeing a guy she just met sacrifice himself for the ENTIRE CAUSE? She would rather see the entire Resistance die, than letting Finn go ahead and sacrifice himself. That is not cute or romantic, it is unforgivably stupid, and if I were Finn, I would be furious.

Poe is a discount hot-headed flyboy, because apparently we simply need one in each trilogy. I wanted to like him, but nope. I simply don’t care about any of them, except...

Kylo. Maybe I’m just a sucker for Skywalkers, no matter who they are (because Star Wars, in Lucas’ vision and that’s in the end what matters to me, is a family drama, and it’s about the life and legacy of Anakin Skywalker - my favorite character in any fiction ever, especially Hayden Anakin - his children, and in George’s own words, his grandchildren, in plural), but Kylo is also the deepest and most layered character in this trilogy. Not that it says a lot.

We knew from The Phantom Menace, immediately Anakin’s story and why he was troubled and split inside. We understood (if we were paying attention and didn’t just want *swoosh*bang*slash*) Anakin’s conflict in Ep2, whether we liked him or not. Kylo... just became evil? As a teenager? For no reason whatsoever?

We just know “there’s too much Vader in him”. Anakin became Vader for very specific reasons. He sold his soul to the devil to save someone he loved, and then killed that devil to save someone else that he loved. Anakin was self-centered (he cared about his immediate interests, such as his family, more than the galaxy or the big picture), Anakin was all heart, he was not “just evul”. If they’re saying Kylo “just went bad” because he’s like his grandfather, that... makes no sense whatsoever. Anakin was a very sweet child and a rebellious teenager, but not evil.

Kylo is also very twisted and "torn apart" as he says himself, he wants to be a great darksider but he can't be (neither could Vader, because he always had that light inside him), and that's why he's the "most character" of the characters in the new trilogy, but we have no idea why.

Leia says she lost him when she sent him to Luke. Fair enough, maybe he was (like Anakin) a mommy’s boy who couldn’t stand being sent away and got resentful over it, but that doesn’t explain why he got a dark side, AND:

Luke. Like many others have explained much better than I realized at the time, WHY IN THE GALAXY WOULD LUKE WANT TO KILL KYLO?

The Luke we know from the original trilogy risked his life, risked everything to save Vader. He looked at the most dangerous man in the galaxy, a dedicated SIth lord of 23 years, a man who had killed thousands of people by his own hand without a second thought (no, he did not destroy planets, that was Tarkin and co:), and Luke saw a man that could be redeemed. Vader killed Obi-Wan right in front of Luke, he tortured and froze Han to taunt Luke, and still, when Luke found out who Vader was, he was sure he could save him.

Because that’s the bright light and incurable optimist (and with a near-pathological love and loyalty of family) Luke was established as, over the course of three movies. Now, as a Jedi master perhaps some ten years before TLJ, Luke simply “suspected” that Kylo, his nephew, a child and the very beloved son of his very beloved sister Leia, “might” be getting evil. And he immediately decides to kill this child, sleeping in his bed.

Granted, he changes his mind, but can you blame Kylo for basically thinking Luke is the devil? This is a complete betrayal of character, and not the Luke we got to know before.

People change, but fictional characters are bound by rules real people are not (or rather, their authors are), and if something this massive happens, the audience will be very disappointed and alienated, unless it has a REALLY REALLY good reason. It doesn't. They just needed it for story purposes, because they were lazy, cheap writers.

3. The animatronics. This was something I distinctly remember from watching TFA in theaters two years ago as well, and I felt it even more this time. It's like they're actively TRYING to make the "muh practical effects" seem like 1983 all over again.

We CAN make absolutely amazing animatronics today, but this was not it. It looked very old and backwards. Unlike many butthurt prequel-haters, I don't give a PIECE OF FECES if it's CG or "practical effects", I just want to be tricked into believing it's real. Bad CG stands out like a sore thumb, and bad animatronics... stand out like a sore thumb.

From baby porgs to Force ghost Yoda, a lot of it looked painfully 1980s. (Though I will say, not all of it was. I believe the fathier in the stable was an animatronic, and THAT was impressive and what I mean by "being tricked into believing it's real".)

4. Social Justice Wars: A Star Wars Story

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I don't know where to begin with you, so just ignore this point. I assume you understand exactly what I'm talking about. But basically, as the video below explains a lot better: Every white man in the story is an idiot, maniac or space-nazi, except for Luke (and he tries to kill his own nephew and student in his bed). And all space-nazis are white men, except for Phasma (so much for "diversity"). The top space-nazi, Hux, is a complete, raging idiot. Kylo and Hux bicker and yell at each other like children in a sandbox.

"The trio" in this film, since Rey is now with Luke, is a black guy, a latino guy, and a chubby Asian girl. I wouldn't care about this at all if it didn't feel forced. But it does. It's PAINFULLY obvious what they're doing. And of course, every single man in the film does something stupid or cruel, while the women are basically perfect and never make mistakes or do anything bad.

I was told before I saw the film that there was some animal rights propaganda in it. I saw it, and thought meh, it's not that bad. And it isn't, but it's still a political message that simply does not belong in a film like this (again, explained better in the video below).

Basically, Chewie, ever the huge meat-lover (remember him accidentally trapping himself and everyone else when he ran after a carcass like a drooling dog in ROTJ?), decides to not eat that porg he's cooking over the fire because the living porgs are SO CUTE.

Evil rich people beat and abuse animals for money and fun. I do hope this isn't meant as a prod against real life horse racing, because there are very strict rules on how much you can use the whip, and violent riders will be disqualified. I could understand if they aim it at the fact that in general, some sports still exist where we torment animals with electric prods (like some rodeos), but even that has no place in a film like this.

And Rose then letting the fathiers loose, saying "now it was worth it", because they were free, nevermind everything else they did that day and what they came there for. Bleh.

5. Destroying characters.

If I hadn't ranted about Luke enough already, I'll do so now. Namely his end. When watching it, I didn't understand at all what happened. His robes fell? I recognized this as what happened with OB1 and Yoda when they had died and passed into becoming one with the Force, but I did not realize at all Luke was dead.

When Leia and one of the other characters said "Luke is gone", I was like "wait what?" I had to go home and check Wookieepedia to get it confirmed.

Here you have one of the biggest characters in cinema EVER, and they take him out like that. Force-projecting himself onto another planet, then dying from exhaustion. If that Force-projection was meant to save him, that clearly didn't work. Luke was not just completely betrayed by the writers and turned into a completely different character, he was also wasted utterly.

I know not everyone can get everything they want in new movies, and it's 100% impossible to please a Star Wars fan, let alone many fans. I get that.

But Luke was now in his fifties, and had had thirty+ years to train since we last saw him. He was already really powerful by the end of ROTJ, he was the son of the Chosen One, should have a crazy high Force power in him (or midi-chlorian count, which I don't mind at all).

And since unlike his father, he was never severely mutilated, and he lived a much longer life as a Jedi, he should be CRAZY powerful by now. At least Yoda level. We should have gotten some really amazing Force battles (like Yoda vs Sidious, but much more still) between Luke and Kylo, Luke or Snoke, or just anything.

Which brings me to... the Knights of Ren. They were mentioned (and seen briefly, in Rey's vision) in TFA. And it is to be assumed they were Luke's former students who followed Kylo. Why were they not seen? Why was there not a single true lightsaber duel in this film? (AND HOW IN THE FLYING FUCK COULD REY AND KYLO BEAT ALL THOSE GUARDS? They cut through them like butter.)

Kylo is supposed to be "Master of the Knights of Ren", but we're 2/3rds into the trilogy, and he seems to be in a vacuum, just a lonely frightened boy disciplined by No-character Snoke when he isn’t yelling at Hux. Where are his knights?

6. Betraying Lucas

Kathleen Kennedy promised to honor Lucas' wishes and use his story treatment. Kathleen Kennedy lied, wiped her ass with his story, and threw it in the garbage in favor of "The Force is Female!" and the almighty $$$.

Lucas has spoken for decades on how the next trilogy (which he asked Mark Hamill if he would be interested in filming, back in 1976, supposed to be filmed in 2011!), would be about "Darth Vader's grandchildren". Emphasis on children, in plural. And he wanted the characters (the respective kids of Luke and Leia) to be teenagers.

Fine, if Kennedyfilm thinks teenagers are too young and childish for their audience, make them older, but they didn't just do that. They threw his entire story and ideas in the toilet. Mark was completely alienated and disgusted by their decisions for Luke, which he has expressed at length (as well as his deep admiration and loyalty to Lucas, while he always does this in subtle ways, to not piss anyone off or get on the wrong foot with anyone).

In Legends, which was all Lucas-approved, Han and Leia had three children and Luke had one (then Han and Leia's youngest son died tragically, and even more tragically, the daughter ended up killing her other brother years later, but that's for another time).

I get if this is too many characters, or too many Skywalkers for Kennedyfilm (numerous characters in books are often squeezed into two or one in film, since instead of weeks, you only have a couple of hours to get to know all the characters), but they just gave us ONE Skywalker grandkid. Kylo, who's completely messed up and unlikely to carry this legacy on (and the Skywalker name is officially dead with Luke).

They teased us with Domhnall Gleeson, who looked like an obvious Ben Skywalker. They teased us with Rey, so similar to Padmé "there is no way they're not related", and tons of hints in TFA. But nope. Just Kylo. And thus ends the Skywalkers.

And no Skywalkers, no Star Wars.

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