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thewriterowl · 10 months

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Now for the hard question: in your top 10 movie franchises list add in ALL of the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings movies in order of favorites.

Oh you have to ask the hard questions! Ok, let me see...in order for Star Wars:

Empire Strikes Back -- it is just such a good movie with some iconic Luke looks and Daddy-Son moments. It's so good and him with grandpa-Yoda is so cute. I also love how we see this lead up into Luke's change of perspective with everything.

Return of the Jedi -- Also great Luke and Daddy-Son moments. I think it barely inches over New Hope simply because I got to see it again on the 40th re-release in theaters and I was feral over how Luke looked. Also, loved the fighting scenes and we get Lando. I also happen to love the Ewoks.

New Hope -- May actually be in second place once RoJ-theater release gives me peace (need another few months). But this Luke is just so pure and whiny and I want to put him in my pocket forever and ever and ever. (let me throw this Luke at Din omg)

Revenge of the Sith -- UGH just UGH so god. Anakin is so hot in this and so messed up and this lead up is just fantastic and wonderful and absolutely tragic.

Rogue One -- I mean, how could I not adore this? It is absolutely AMAZING. Just heartbreaking with amazing graphics, awesome characters, and is only getting better thanks to the Andor series.

The Force Awakens -- Honestly, I adored this movie so much. It wasn't perfect, it needed more Luke and the original trio, but it had so much potential. I just thought it was leading up to something amazing and the memes Mark gave us after left me excited and laughing for a long time.

The Phantom Menace -- Part of this is spite-love for young Anakin and Jar Jar Binks; both deserve better. But honestly, I have rewatched this a few times recently and was all "this is actually great? why the hate?"

Attack of the Clones -- Honestly, I need to rewatch this again. It's just here cause I haven't rewatched it in a while and i don't know why. We get Jango! We get the Clones! Baby Boba! The SAND-QUOTE! Obi-Wan's mullet! The lead up to the Clone War series! Badass Yoda! Yeah, gotta do a re-watch.

Solo -- Again, i actually really enjoyed the movie. It wasn't the best but it wasn't bad. Honestly, there were just some weird choices for some story movements and character interactions but other than that? It was good. I need to rewatch it honestly.

The Last Jedi -- I hate, hate, hate what they did to my Luke. If they were going to go this route with him I'd understand 100% because it would make sense for him to to have so much PTSD and just be burnt out and so hurt (still, i think we have enough of this and deserve older heroes that are still full of hope and silly and are kind). But the execution and how he is made to be a loser is just wrong. There were also some other scenes and interactions that were "uh...no?" but the fight scenes were great, Po was great, I loved Rose, I loved Finn's story and realization. It was just really wonky, disjointed from what we were getting before, and I will keep my head-cannon Luke in my claws.

The Rise of Skywalker -- I...didn't like it. I saw it twice and actually checked the time till I could go home often (only have done that with like two other movies). It was so awkward, the dialogue was poor, the actors seemed done, there was so many random new stories thrown in at last second, characters were thrown away, "Palpatine somehow returned?" like...what??? It was just lame. Such a lame, lame ending. The OT-trio and the new trio deserved so much better. It needs a re-do.

Now for the Lord of the Rings!:

The Fellowship of the Ring -- Even though it wasn't the most action packed, what it sparked, how good it was...just AUGH perfection. I adore this movie so much.

The Two Towers -- Incredible, amazing, also perfect. Great action, all the characters are given their due-time (with Legolas making faces). I love it.

Return of the King -- AMAZING ENDING. The wraps up is just...the moments of suffering and the release. The HAPPINESS. How ever gets what they deserve (tho RIP Boromir) just adore it so much.

The Desolation of Smaug -- PERFECT. Except for maybe some off CGI, this movie was amazing. So much Bagginshield, the intense cliffhanger, the Arkenstone....it was so good. I adored this movie so much!

An Unexpected Journey -- I adore Bilbo. I love him so much. And how this opened up Bagginshield just how could I not adore it??

Battle of the Five Armies -- I didn't like it the first time I watched it. But a few more times I was "huh, actually, it's not bad!" It honestly should've been loads better. There were so many wonky decisions and everything that happened did not feel like it met up with the end of a trilogy. But the end....how everyone survived! Can you believe that there was absolutely NO HEARTBREAK WHAT'SO'EVER??

#owl inbox #star wars #the lord of the rings #the hobbit

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irinapaleolog · 4 years

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In the Star Wars Universe, Love Is Dead

The Rise of Skywalker gives it the kiss of death.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opens not with a love triangle or a love quadrangle but a love pentagon. When last we left our heroes, Rose had kissed Finn, who many fans were actually hoping would get together with Poe, but who had expressed interest instead in Rey, who had her own twisted long-distance relationship with Kylo Ren. To complicate things even further, The Rise of Skywalker adds two more players to the equation: Poe’s old flame Zorii and an ex-Stormtrooper named Jannah.

For a while, it seemed like the movie had an ingeniously simple solution to this tangled web of hormones. On the desert planet Pasaana, they attend the Star Wars equivalent of Burning Man, and like so many Burning Man attendees, they soon feel their true feelings bubbling to the surface: Finn starts to confess something to Rey, but he only gets as far as “Rey, I never told you—” before being swallowed up by quicksand.

One might reasonably assume—as a significant portion of The Rise of Skywalker’s audience did—that Finn was going to tell Rey he loves her. It makes sense: He’s had a crush on her since the beginning, even asking her relationship status shortly after they met in The Force Awakens, and their connection has only grown since then. Though they spend much of The Last Jedi apart, the very first thing Finn does after waking up from a coma is ask where Rey is.

But The Rise of Skywalker ends with no such confession of love ever taking place. In fact, we never learn what Finn was going to say to Rey in that moment. J. J. Abrams reportedly told a fan that Finn was trying to tell Rey that he’s Force-sensitive. The Rise of Skywalker makes it very clear that Finn is Force-sensitive, but why would he use what he believes are his last words to say that? Why would it be important for Rey to know that in the seconds before she and her friends die? And why wouldn’t Finn just say it, then, once they survived? How come it’s a big secret from Poe?

Whatever the confession was supposed to be, actor John Boyega has seconded that, at the very least, Finn was not going to make a declaration of his feelings, clearing the path for what has turned out to be the central couple of this trilogy: Rey and Kylo Ren. But despite having a throng of other admirers waiting in the wings, Finn doesn’t end up with any of them, either. Rose is sidelined for most of the movie, and her big post-battle reunion is a platonic hug with Chewbacca, not a smooch with Finn.

Despite Oscar Isaac’s express wish that Finn and Poe would become an item, that doesn’t happen either, nor does Poe get together with Zorii, who turns him down with a slight shake of the helmet. Though Finn spends a lot of time bonding with Jannah, the new character played by Naomi Ackie, there’s nothing overtly romantic about their connection in the movie, despite what Ackie has said in interviews. Are there shared sparks, or are they just bonding over their shared pasts in the imperial forces? In the end, all our heroes are single.

They should count themselves lucky. With The Rise of Skywalker, it’s official: Love is dead in the Star Wars universe. Despite the occasional gesture at a triangle or quadrangle or an even more many-sided polygon, the Star Wars movies have historically averaged one core romance per trilogy, and with the conclusion of the ninth installment, not one of them has ended in anything other than tragedy. Anakin and Padme’s love is tortured from the start because the Jedi Order forbid its members from forming romantic attachments, and ultimately Anakin’s fear of Padme dying drives him to the dark side and leaves her to die giving birth to their children.

Meanwhile, Han and Leia both end up dead as a result of their love. The Force Awakens torpedoes the brief happy ending that they got at the end of Return of the Jedi, revealing that they’ve since separated, and it’s all downhill from there. Han is literally murdered by the result of their love, their son Kylo Ren, and two movies later, Leia spends her own dying breath trying to save him.

The Rise of Skywalker marks the shortest-lived romance of all. After years of closely analyzing the most sexual tension the Star Wars franchise has to offer—which is still pretty PG—Reylo shippers were finally vindicated at the very end of the movie, after a newly reformed Kylo Ren saves Rey’s life with Force healing power. They share one passionate kiss—and then he immediately keels over, dead. Forget graphic images of STIs or abstinence-only instructional films, the most effective videos for preventing teen pregnancy may be the Star Wars movies. See what happens when you give in to your desires, kids?

This bleak view of romantic love extends even to the franchise’s spinoffs. In Solo, Woody Harrelson’s Beckett loses his wife, Val, and Han is betrayed by his first love, Qi’ra, who chooses a life of crime over their being together. On Star Wars Rebels, Kanan Jarrus sacrifices himself to save his (pregnant, it turns out) lover, dying in a fiery explosion. And don’t think never consummating the relationship will save you. At the end of Rogue One, Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor die clinging to each other in—yes, again—a fiery explosion, without ever sharing an on-screen kiss. (Though if you think those two were just friends, I suggest you rewatch the elevator scene.) On Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi chooses his duty and the Jedi way over the love of his life, Satine Kryze, but she still dies in his arms.

The difference between romance, the concept, and romance, the genre, has long been the Happily Ever After. I’m not saying that Abrams should’ve let Kylo Ren and Rey ride off together into the sunsets—he still murdered, like, a bunch of people, so how would that relationship even work? (The click-clack of keyboards being used to write fanfiction at this very moment will surely explain to me exactly how it would’ve worked, and more power to those shippers.)

But it’s not healthy for the franchise that romance automatically equals tragedy, and pairing off Finn and Rey would’ve been a nice corrective to that trend—not to mention a wholesome example of a romance staple: the transformation of friends into lovers. Whereas Han and Leia bickered, and Anakin and Padme exchanged agonizing dialogue about sand, Finn and Rey’s relationship has been built on kinship and compassion and tender hugs. The confession that never was is a major missed opportunity.

Then again, maybe the Jedi were onto something about forbidding romance, considering what happens to just about every other couple in the saga. Those two lady pilots who kiss at the end of The Rise of Skywalker better watch out—as soon as the camera cuts away, something terrible is bound to happen.

#star wars #reylo

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