The Rise of Skywalker
Dec. 26th, 2019 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goth_is_not_emoSo I have a TON of feelings about this movie, and they need to be written down NOW. Spoilers will be behind the cut.
First of all, I'm getting tired of people complaining so much about J. J. Abrams, as if he's somehow single-handedly responsible for destroying the films we loved during our childhoods. The dude is a fan of both Star Wars and Star Trek, and it shows through in his writing. Do you really want an aging George Lucas to write these films, without his ex-wife editing them like she did the original trilogy? We had that. It's called the prequel trilogy. Most fans agree that the prequels suck. Admit it: you want the original trilogy, only New Again, so you can experience it for the first time again. You can't have that. None of us can have that. It's impossible without completely wiping your memory and showing you the original trilogy. And that's okay. Some things are fleeting, like the feeling you had when you saw your favorite movie for the first time. You still remember the way you felt the first time you saw A New Hope, and that memory is still there. Nobody can buy or sell that memory. It's yours.
OK, now that that's over with, I'm starting with something absolutely beautiful. There is a subset of SW fans who somehow missed the entire point of Star Wars and grew up to be racist, sexist assholes. I'm thinking of the dude who wrote the TFA review that called BB-9 a "little cuck ball." (If that was satire, it was masterfully done. I certainly believed it was an actual MRA douchebag.) These terrible fans wouldn't STFU about Rose....existing. How dare a WOC have an important role in a Star War. How dare she be anywhere except the background while the Manly Men do the actual work. So naturally, TRoS has Rose in a much smaller role than she had in TLJ--and turns around and adds two new female characters, both of which are vital to advancing the plot, one of whom is black and plays a pivotal role in the final battle. Because fuck you, bigoted fans! Cry harder! Your tears give us strength.
As always, the droids were entertaining. And yes, of course I spoke along when C-3PO introduced himself. "Hello, I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations" has been permanently etched into my brain since I was a toddler and my dad taped the original trilogy off the TV. (I need to see if I can find those old tapes. Since the Special Edition has been the only commercially-available one for over 20 years, it's hard to find the SW I actually watched as a kid.)
We all knew Leia was going to die, so this isn't a spoiler. They handled her death beautifully, IMO. As promised, there was still enough unused footage of Carrie Fisher that they could make her appearance in TRoS believable. I don't think Leia or Carrie could have been treated more respectfully in the movie than what we got.
There was also some shameless pandering, in two scenes at the very end of the movie that lasted less than 2 seconds each. We got Ewoks. Because apparently, somebody out there thinks, not only that fans all loved the Ewoks (I personally liked them as a kid), but that 2 seconds of cheering Ewoks at the end of the movie is the correct amount of Ewoks. THEY DID NOTHING IN THE MOVIE. Why not throw in the damn Gungans too, tick all the "annoying alien races created for merchandising purposes" boxes?
We also got "lesbian representation," in the form of 2 women who don't even get named or have any speaking roles kissing. Oh hey, a second and a half of Gay that can be easily removed for overseas markets because Disney are greedy cowards. That is not representation. That is the biggest media company in the world throwing us a tiny crumb and pretending it's a whole goddamned cake. SAME-SEX COUPLES AREN'T CONTROVERSIAL ANYMORE. EVERYONE ELSE IS INCLUDING THEM. Join the fucking 21st century already, Disney.
On the plus side, did y'all see Rey, Finn, and Poe in that 3-way hug at the end? IDC what anyone says, they are a triad. You will pluck this ship from my cold dead fingers.
And spoiler time.
The film seemed to be a lot about symmetry. A character who fears a turn to the Dark Side, and a character who fears that it's too late to change. Hope and fear. Having the support of friends vs going it alone. There are thematic callbacks, but they aren't too egregious except for the goddamned Ewoks. And yes, I'm going to talk about them, and all the other Past Stuff, at length.
Holy shit y'all, Zombie Palpatine was unexpected and also super scary. I have no problem with him being in the movie, because Abrams knew how to use him to greatest dramatic effect, and it goddamned worked. There was no question that this was a being who had been brought back from death to a sort of half-life via evil Sith magics and that weird machine. And we all knew there had to secretly be a lot more Sith than we ever saw onscreen. "Always two there are," Yoda said at the end of Episode 1, but Count Dooku immediately proved him wrong. So it made a sick sort of sense that most of them had been on a secret Sith planet for so many years. After all, didn't the Jedi used to have their own planet? Symmetry.
Speaking of old ghosts, I'm glad they incorporated a chunk of the second Death Star. It makes sense. Endor has many moons. Most of an exploding Death Star would be drawn in by the gravity of the gas giant itself, but a fair bit would rain down on Endor's moons. (Also, a nice reason for the Ewoks to not be in the Endor scenes; the mutineers were on a different moon.) And oh, every time Palpatine's old throne appeared in-frame I got such chills. This was the very room where the climax of the original trilogy happened, and Abrams knew that showing the locator gadget in a room adjacent to THIS ROOM would set off all the emotions that we felt in RotJ all over again for older fans. Is it a cheap trick? Yes. Do I still love the hell out of it? Also yes.
A callback to the old series I don't appreciate? Making Rey a Palpatine. She didn't have to be related to any other major players in the SW universe. She really, really didn't. Being the child of a "nobody" works just as well for the theme of "Your past is not your destiny" as being the grandchild of the creepiest-looking Evil Guy in cinema until Voldemort showed up. The Force Dyad thing, though. I don't much like it personally, but I have to admit that it fits nicely with all the tension between Kylo and Rey in the other two movies. It explains why they kept having visions of each other. It ties a weird subplot from TLJ up with a neat little bow.
And ugggggh, the kiss. I'm cool with people shipping whatever you want, but that doesn't mean I appreciated Reylo being canon for a few seconds. NOT EVERY POPULAR SHIP OF TWO WHITE CHARACTERS NEEDS TO BE CANON.
However, I do like literally everything else about the final fall of Palpatine. The way Rey uses their Force connection to pass the Skywalker lightsaber to Ben. The dramatic literal rise of a Skywalker from the pit. The reflection of Vader saving Luke in the way that Ben is willing to give up his life to bring back Rey. And of course, the final nail in the dead Emperor's coffin when Rey buries Luke's and Leia's lightsabers at the ruins of the old moisture farm, and tells the woman who asks that she is Rey Skywalker.
In case you missed it earlier in this post, I love Janna. I love everything about Finn's reunion with his defector "family." I love the implication that Janna might be related to Finn or Lando, without anything being spelled out for us. (THANK YOU, JJ Abrams, for not wrecking this one with a clear-cut "Oh yes, they're all close blood relatives." At least you had the decency not to bestow family ties to the original trilogy on SOMEbody.)
The hope stuff. Rogue One had the line "Rebellions are built on hope," and TRoS took that and ran with it. Hope, at many points in the movie, is all the Resistance has. And so many lines seem applicable to the current political situation around the world, where fascists have taken over several countries and Turkey and China are openly engaging in genocide. "There are so many of them." "But there are more of us." Hope is good. Fear is valid, but must be faced and conquered. No tyranny can survive if the people unite and rise up against them. This isn't even subtext; it's TEXT. Even if it wasn't meant to apply to our world, it definitely does.
The First Order (Last Order?) is bewildered when the reinforcements arrive. "They have no navy. These are just....people." They're so consumed with the idea of military might that the idea of civilians being able to do anything to stop them is beyond their imagination altogether. Their complacency--of course we can beat the Resistance, we have more ships, we have a huge military, we have Evil Space Wizards on our side--is their undoing.
And Hux being the spy? Fucking Hux? An excellent plot twist that meshes nicely with TLJ. We saw how much Hux hated Kylo Ren. So yeah, we can believe him being willing to sabotage an entire massive military operation just to get rid of Kylo Ren. He even says he doesn't care who wins the war at that point.
I'm sure I'm going to have more complaints after the initial euphoria of I JUST SAW A NEW STAR WARS MOVIE wears off, but for now? I'm happy with it, overall. It wasn't the utter tirefire that everyone on the Internet made it out to be, that's for sure.
First of all, I'm getting tired of people complaining so much about J. J. Abrams, as if he's somehow single-handedly responsible for destroying the films we loved during our childhoods. The dude is a fan of both Star Wars and Star Trek, and it shows through in his writing. Do you really want an aging George Lucas to write these films, without his ex-wife editing them like she did the original trilogy? We had that. It's called the prequel trilogy. Most fans agree that the prequels suck. Admit it: you want the original trilogy, only New Again, so you can experience it for the first time again. You can't have that. None of us can have that. It's impossible without completely wiping your memory and showing you the original trilogy. And that's okay. Some things are fleeting, like the feeling you had when you saw your favorite movie for the first time. You still remember the way you felt the first time you saw A New Hope, and that memory is still there. Nobody can buy or sell that memory. It's yours.
OK, now that that's over with, I'm starting with something absolutely beautiful. There is a subset of SW fans who somehow missed the entire point of Star Wars and grew up to be racist, sexist assholes. I'm thinking of the dude who wrote the TFA review that called BB-9 a "little cuck ball." (If that was satire, it was masterfully done. I certainly believed it was an actual MRA douchebag.) These terrible fans wouldn't STFU about Rose....existing. How dare a WOC have an important role in a Star War. How dare she be anywhere except the background while the Manly Men do the actual work. So naturally, TRoS has Rose in a much smaller role than she had in TLJ--and turns around and adds two new female characters, both of which are vital to advancing the plot, one of whom is black and plays a pivotal role in the final battle. Because fuck you, bigoted fans! Cry harder! Your tears give us strength.
As always, the droids were entertaining. And yes, of course I spoke along when C-3PO introduced himself. "Hello, I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations" has been permanently etched into my brain since I was a toddler and my dad taped the original trilogy off the TV. (I need to see if I can find those old tapes. Since the Special Edition has been the only commercially-available one for over 20 years, it's hard to find the SW I actually watched as a kid.)
We all knew Leia was going to die, so this isn't a spoiler. They handled her death beautifully, IMO. As promised, there was still enough unused footage of Carrie Fisher that they could make her appearance in TRoS believable. I don't think Leia or Carrie could have been treated more respectfully in the movie than what we got.
There was also some shameless pandering, in two scenes at the very end of the movie that lasted less than 2 seconds each. We got Ewoks. Because apparently, somebody out there thinks, not only that fans all loved the Ewoks (I personally liked them as a kid), but that 2 seconds of cheering Ewoks at the end of the movie is the correct amount of Ewoks. THEY DID NOTHING IN THE MOVIE. Why not throw in the damn Gungans too, tick all the "annoying alien races created for merchandising purposes" boxes?
We also got "lesbian representation," in the form of 2 women who don't even get named or have any speaking roles kissing. Oh hey, a second and a half of Gay that can be easily removed for overseas markets because Disney are greedy cowards. That is not representation. That is the biggest media company in the world throwing us a tiny crumb and pretending it's a whole goddamned cake. SAME-SEX COUPLES AREN'T CONTROVERSIAL ANYMORE. EVERYONE ELSE IS INCLUDING THEM. Join the fucking 21st century already, Disney.
On the plus side, did y'all see Rey, Finn, and Poe in that 3-way hug at the end? IDC what anyone says, they are a triad. You will pluck this ship from my cold dead fingers.
And spoiler time.
The film seemed to be a lot about symmetry. A character who fears a turn to the Dark Side, and a character who fears that it's too late to change. Hope and fear. Having the support of friends vs going it alone. There are thematic callbacks, but they aren't too egregious except for the goddamned Ewoks. And yes, I'm going to talk about them, and all the other Past Stuff, at length.
Holy shit y'all, Zombie Palpatine was unexpected and also super scary. I have no problem with him being in the movie, because Abrams knew how to use him to greatest dramatic effect, and it goddamned worked. There was no question that this was a being who had been brought back from death to a sort of half-life via evil Sith magics and that weird machine. And we all knew there had to secretly be a lot more Sith than we ever saw onscreen. "Always two there are," Yoda said at the end of Episode 1, but Count Dooku immediately proved him wrong. So it made a sick sort of sense that most of them had been on a secret Sith planet for so many years. After all, didn't the Jedi used to have their own planet? Symmetry.
Speaking of old ghosts, I'm glad they incorporated a chunk of the second Death Star. It makes sense. Endor has many moons. Most of an exploding Death Star would be drawn in by the gravity of the gas giant itself, but a fair bit would rain down on Endor's moons. (Also, a nice reason for the Ewoks to not be in the Endor scenes; the mutineers were on a different moon.) And oh, every time Palpatine's old throne appeared in-frame I got such chills. This was the very room where the climax of the original trilogy happened, and Abrams knew that showing the locator gadget in a room adjacent to THIS ROOM would set off all the emotions that we felt in RotJ all over again for older fans. Is it a cheap trick? Yes. Do I still love the hell out of it? Also yes.
A callback to the old series I don't appreciate? Making Rey a Palpatine. She didn't have to be related to any other major players in the SW universe. She really, really didn't. Being the child of a "nobody" works just as well for the theme of "Your past is not your destiny" as being the grandchild of the creepiest-looking Evil Guy in cinema until Voldemort showed up. The Force Dyad thing, though. I don't much like it personally, but I have to admit that it fits nicely with all the tension between Kylo and Rey in the other two movies. It explains why they kept having visions of each other. It ties a weird subplot from TLJ up with a neat little bow.
And ugggggh, the kiss. I'm cool with people shipping whatever you want, but that doesn't mean I appreciated Reylo being canon for a few seconds. NOT EVERY POPULAR SHIP OF TWO WHITE CHARACTERS NEEDS TO BE CANON.
However, I do like literally everything else about the final fall of Palpatine. The way Rey uses their Force connection to pass the Skywalker lightsaber to Ben. The dramatic literal rise of a Skywalker from the pit. The reflection of Vader saving Luke in the way that Ben is willing to give up his life to bring back Rey. And of course, the final nail in the dead Emperor's coffin when Rey buries Luke's and Leia's lightsabers at the ruins of the old moisture farm, and tells the woman who asks that she is Rey Skywalker.
In case you missed it earlier in this post, I love Janna. I love everything about Finn's reunion with his defector "family." I love the implication that Janna might be related to Finn or Lando, without anything being spelled out for us. (THANK YOU, JJ Abrams, for not wrecking this one with a clear-cut "Oh yes, they're all close blood relatives." At least you had the decency not to bestow family ties to the original trilogy on SOMEbody.)
The hope stuff. Rogue One had the line "Rebellions are built on hope," and TRoS took that and ran with it. Hope, at many points in the movie, is all the Resistance has. And so many lines seem applicable to the current political situation around the world, where fascists have taken over several countries and Turkey and China are openly engaging in genocide. "There are so many of them." "But there are more of us." Hope is good. Fear is valid, but must be faced and conquered. No tyranny can survive if the people unite and rise up against them. This isn't even subtext; it's TEXT. Even if it wasn't meant to apply to our world, it definitely does.
The First Order (Last Order?) is bewildered when the reinforcements arrive. "They have no navy. These are just....people." They're so consumed with the idea of military might that the idea of civilians being able to do anything to stop them is beyond their imagination altogether. Their complacency--of course we can beat the Resistance, we have more ships, we have a huge military, we have Evil Space Wizards on our side--is their undoing.
And Hux being the spy? Fucking Hux? An excellent plot twist that meshes nicely with TLJ. We saw how much Hux hated Kylo Ren. So yeah, we can believe him being willing to sabotage an entire massive military operation just to get rid of Kylo Ren. He even says he doesn't care who wins the war at that point.
I'm sure I'm going to have more complaints after the initial euphoria of I JUST SAW A NEW STAR WARS MOVIE wears off, but for now? I'm happy with it, overall. It wasn't the utter tirefire that everyone on the Internet made it out to be, that's for sure.
