[Grizzly]

Your dramatic generalizations have no power here!

[Grizzly]

From what I've heard/read, this movie is hot garbage fanfic funded by Disney and Rey is confirmed as the Mary Sue of Mary Sues. I'm ready to read the sprawling HLP debate on the film when you've all seen it. I'm gonna pass, though.

It's JJ Abrams, I'm going into the film expecting to be shamelessly pandered to and be given a visual spectacle that I haven't seen since...

... The last star wars film I watched .

[Nightmare]

Audience then.

Ah, Hard Light. I forgot about how everyone nitpicks everything to death around here. It's tiresome.

Atleast the ending of the movie (the only part I've seen of it, admitedly) was written in a way that there won't be much nitpicking about anything as nobody should be able to find anything good about it aside that it's over.

[Asteroth]

Bringing back Palpatine is incredibly dumb. Just wanted to get that off my chest.

[Grizzly]

Bringing back Palpatine is incredibly dumb. Just wanted to get that off my chest.

Yes.

Part of me wonders whether Palpetine coming back was the PLAN ALL ALONG, or it was just "oh **** we just killed our big bad guy and we have to have another big bad guy becuase we really want our Kylo Ren redemption arc"

i'm leaning towards the latter.

Unless JJ Abrams needed really, really hard to answer the question

Spoiler:

DOES PALPATYNE ****?

[Scourge of Ages]

I just saw it today. And I have to say: I actually enjoyed it. On a scale of "yes/no" it's a definite "yes".

Are there plot holes? Sure.
Are there new force powers not implied in previous movies? Also sure.
Do certain characters that should be dead appear to not be dead? Perhaps.
Is Rey a bit Mary Sue-ish? Well I guess!
Can you nitpick it to death if you try? Absolutely.

Is there anything that is completely implausible in Star Wars canon? I don't feel like it.
Is there any moment that completely breaks immersion or hearkens back bad memories of the prequels? Nope! (ymmv)
Is it cool enough, and well produced enough to keep you engaged and ignoring your desire to nitpick? I think so.
Is this review format grating on you yet? OK I'll stop.

This movie really did seem to tie everything from the first two movies, and even some of the old and new EU, together. It tells a consistent, and entertaining, and perhaps even logically progressive story.

I had some minor gripes, but by and large I enjoyed it. As of this moment, I feel this is the best main series Star Wars movie outside of the original trilogy. Faint praise, I know, but it was entertaining.

tl;dr If you enjoyed The Last Jedi, you may enjoy this one! If you hated either The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi, you likely won't enjoy this one either, but you could probably intuit that anyway.

[BlueFlames]

Bringing back Palpatine is incredibly dumb. Just wanted to get that off my chest.

Yes.

Part of me wonders whether Palpetine coming back was the PLAN ALL ALONG, or it was just "oh **** we just killed our big bad guy and we have to have another big bad guy becuase we really want our Kylo Ren redemption arc"

i'm leaning towards the latter.

Bringing back Palpatine couldn't have been the plan all along, because there was no plan all along.  They were writing each entry of the sequel trilogy as they went and rotated out creative leads each time.  Probably would have helped to have a broad outline to pass from one writing team to the next, at the very least.

I'm also not entirely sure why a Kylo Ren redemption arc is incompatible with Kylo being the big-bad.  Like, redeeming the big-bad in the end is an alternative to murdering him.  But hey, the OT ended with Palpatine getting murdered (or not, apparently) and Vader being redeemed, and if creativity is all JJ has, then JJ has nothing.

I'm expecting mediocrity, but it will be later this coming week before I find out if I set the bar too high.

[Det. Bullock]

I mean it's *fine* but merely fine doesn't cut it for the finale, for all the crap thrown at ROTJ at least it did work as a linear ending without overcomplicating things for the sake of being as "Abrams" as possible.
TFA was a great improvement over his trek  movies, here we are getting again closer to that low level. It's almost like he was enough in awe of Kasdan that his worst tendencies could be somewhat restrained by the older co-writer while Terrio in the end could only do what JJ told him to.

In the end the best film in the sequel trilogy remains The Last Jedi, both as a film in solation and as a Star Wars film, I hope that we'll get Rian's new trilogy.

[mjn.mixael]

I'd be down right shocked if that trilogy saw the light of day. Regardless of your take on TLJ, I don't see how a greedy company like Disney greenlights three movies for the guy who is blamed for sending a non-trivial portion of the fan base running for the hills. Especially since the brand is so clearly stained by current trilogy and spin-offs. (You don't publicly announce that you're slowing film development for a successful franchise.)

No, if you're Disney... You go the marvel route in order to save the brand. You hire a producer with a vision and a yes-man directing team. (Notably there are rumors that KK is out soon and the Game of Thrones guys recently exited their own deal. Based on their recent interviews, I get there impression they don't want to be yes-men because their egos got stroked too much.)

[Det. Bullock]

I'd be down right shocked if that trilogy saw the light of day. Regardless of your take on TLJ, I don't see how a greedy company like Disney greenlights three movies for the guy who is blamed for sending a non-trivial portion of the fan base running for the hills. Especially since the brand is so clearly stained by current trilogy and spin-offs. (You don't publicly announce that you're slowing film development for a successful franchise.)

No, if you're Disney... You go the marvel route in order to save the brand. You hire a producer with a vision and a yes-man directing team. (Notably there are rumors that KK is out soon and the Game of Thrones guys recently exited their own deal. Based on their recent interviews, I get there impression they don't want to be yes-men because their egos got stroked too much.)

The Game of Thrones guys probably got kicked out because they are basically morons that got extremely lucky and made it more and more evident with every subsequent interview they gave.

The thing is that TLJ got an A cinemascore while TROS apparently didn't, I think they care about the fandom only to a point after all Marvel movies did and are pissing off a lot of "true fans" too and that didn't reflect on how much the movies made or how popular they are.

RJ this time won't have the weight of having to write a character many "true fans" thought was an untouchable saint who could do no wrong as a character that's actually intresting.

[mjn.mixael]

I.. er what... Marvel has gotten all the praise and trillions of dollars for it's successful movie conveyor belt. Dunno what you're talking about there.

It doesn't matter what you think RJ could do or what the cinema score is. Studios don't care about Cinema score either. They market with it when it's high and say it doesn't matter when it's low. See: Warner Brothers marketing BvS/JL/WW. I'm saying it doesn't make business sense to spend millions of dollars on the guy, that for whatever reason right or wrong, is blamed for splitting your fanbase in half. And if anything, Disney cares about those dollars way more than they care about creativity. Hell, that's why this trilogy is a sloppy mess. They spent the whole time catering to fan feedback.

I hear you hated the prequels. We got you. Here's Star Wars how you remember it. THE FORCE AWAKENS. What? You all thought that was basically a remake? OK... LAST JEDI. Oh? Oh no! You thought that threw out the baby with the bath water? Sorry! RISE OF SKYWALKER.

[Black Wolf]

In the end the best film in the sequel trilogy remains The Last Jedi, both as a film in solation and as a Star Wars film, I hope that we'll get Rian's new trilogy.

Given Solo's failing and TRoS's sub optimal opening weekend, I'd be surprised if Kathleen Kennedy, or anything she greenlit that isn't solidly in production, survives very long. Johnson is almost certainly done with Star Wars, and personally I can't wait to see the back of him.

TRoS was... Fine. It was hampered by having to do so much work to fix the mess TLJ left. I haven't loved what JJ did with the sequels, but I think unquestionably we would have been better off if he'd done all three, or at least Johnson had been mandated to follow a predetermined  plan. That wouldn't have fixed the tonal problems (something TRoS did get right, no more stupid "jokes" undercutting dramatic moments), but it might have prevented some of the character issues, and I can't imagine Canto Bight would have made an appearance in any prewritten outlines.

The big disappointment for me was the final space battle: it was more or less entirely recycled ships and felt lazy - I didn't see a single ship that looked like it had been custom made for the battle, which in 2019 is pretty piss poor. Combined with weird issues around the pacing and the way it was presented, it was a big step down from the other SW set piece battles (Yavin, Endor, Coruscant).

Short summary: too much movie trying to fix too many things in too short a time, but it's moderately successful at that. Spending a little more effort on making the space battle memorable would have helped. 6/10.

[Det. Bullock]

In the end the best film in the sequel trilogy remains The Last Jedi, both as a film in solation and as a Star Wars film, I hope that we'll get Rian's new trilogy.

Given Solo's failing and TRoS's sub optimal opening weekend, I'd be surprised if Kathleen Kennedy, or anything she greenlit that isn't solidly in production, survives very long. Johnson is almost certainly done with Star Wars, and personally I can't wait to see the back of him.

TRoS was... Fine. It was hampered by having to do so much work to fix the mess TLJ left. I haven't loved what JJ did with the sequels, but I think unquestionably we would have been better off if he'd done all three, or at least Johnson had been mandated to follow a predetermined  plan. That wouldn't have fixed the tonal problems (something TRoS did get right, no more stupid "jokes" undercutting dramatic moments), but it might have prevented some of the character issues, and I can't imagine Canto Bight would have made an appearance in any prewritten outlines.

The big disappointment for me was the final space battle: it was more or less entirely recycled ships and felt lazy - I didn't see a single ship that looked like it had been custom made for the battle, which in 2019 is pretty piss poor. Combined with weird issues around the pacing and the way it was presented, it was a big step down from the other SW set piece battles (Yavin, Endor, Coruscant).

Short summary: too much movie trying to fix too many things in too short a time, but it's moderately successful at that. Spending a little more effort on making the space battle memorable would have helped. 6/10.

Both Solo and TROS are basically empty nostalgia trips, which is fine for a spin off like Solo but near unforgivable for the conclusion of a mainline trilogy.

I.. er what... Marvel has gotten all the praise and trillions of dollars for it's successful movie conveyor belt. Dunno what you're talking about there.

It doesn't matter what you think RJ could do or what the cinema score is. Studios don't care about Cinema score either. They market with it when it's high and say it doesn't matter when it's low. See: Warner Brothers marketing BvS/JL/WW. I'm saying it doesn't make business sense to spend millions of dollars on the guy, that for whatever reason right or wrong, is blamed for splitting your fanbase in half. And if anything, Disney cares about those dollars way more than they care about creativity. Hell, that's why this trilogy is a sloppy mess. They spent the whole time catering to fan feedback.

I hear you hated the prequels. We got you. Here's Star Wars how you remember it. THE FORCE AWAKENS. What? You all thought that was basically a remake? OK... LAST JEDI. Oh? Oh no! You thought that threw out the baby with the bath water? Sorry! RISE OF SKYWALKER.

Cinemascore is the index that takes the votes from people actually going to cinemas to see the movie and it's usually the best predictor of how much "legs" a movie has and is for the benfit of the industry, that is KK and al the major head honchos. TLJ had A while TROS had a B+ which is the lesser cinemascore of any Star Wars movie bar the animated one.

Also you probably don't hang out in comics forums or comic book readers as much as I do because they really HATE some choices the MCU made ovr the years, but the thing is very few people actually read comics nowadays so they got lost in the noise and many resigned to accept the MCU over the years but the kind of backlash is similar.

If they go the MCU route it will probably be more stuff like The Last Jedi than The Rise of Skywalker, because according to the "common idiot that actually went to see the movie" meter it actually went over better than its fanservice and little else sequel regardless of what internet people say.

[mjn.mixael]

C'mon man. Comic geeks are not the audience that Marvel Studios is worried about. Not even a little bit. By your own admission that's a tiny fraction of the current Marvel fanbase. The MCU is easily the most successful movie franchise ever. The finale dethroned Avatar... Arguably, that's the kind of success Disney was hoping for when they spent 4 billion dollars to buy Star Wars, which is still one of the biggest cultural behemoths in existence. My only point has been and continues to be that you don't go searching for that kind of success by giving the reigns to the most controversial director in the franchise to date. Whether you like TLJ/RJ or not, you can't even mention his name in Star Wars circles without getting a range of opinions. That's not the person who saves your brand.

Hell, look at how the marketing opinion has changed. After the TLJ backlash gained steam, all of Disney stood by RJ strongly. Even Mark Hamill conveniently changed his mind at one point. Gotta stand by your million dollar movie to convince as much of the audience as you can to go spend money on it. Now we're years down the road marketing the next movie and there's been article after article of actors and directors giving well calculated slights at TLJ. It's all publicity. It's all about the bottom line. They don't actually care what you think about TLJ now. They want you to go spend money on the new one... and they are trying to convince the people who didn't like TLJ that the new one is worth their time money.

[The E]

Knives Out is great though

[BlueFlames]

Knives Out is great though

But is it podracing?

[Det. Bullock]

C'mon man. Comic geeks are not the audience that Marvel Studios is worried about. Not even a little bit. By your own admission that's a tiny fraction of the current Marvel fanbase. The MCU is easily the most successful movie franchise ever. The finale dethroned Avatar... Arguably, that's the kind of success Disney was hoping for when they spent 4 billion dollars to buy Star Wars, which is still one of the biggest cultural behemoths in existence. My only point has been and continues to be that you don't go searching for that kind of success by giving the reigns to the most controversial director in the franchise to date. Whether you like TLJ/RJ or not, you can't even mention his name in Star Wars circles without getting a range of opinions. That's not the person who saves your brand.

Hell, look at how the marketing opinion has changed. After the TLJ backlash gained steam, all of Disney stood by RJ strongly. Even Mark Hamill conveniently changed his mind at one point. Gotta stand by your million dollar movie to convince as much of the audience as you can to go spend money on it. Now we're years down the road marketing the next movie and there's been article after article of actors and directors giving well calculated slights at TLJ. It's all publicity. It's all about the bottom line. They don't actually care what you think about TLJ now. They want you to go spend money on the new one... and they are trying to convince the people who didn't like TLJ that the new one is worth their time money.

Exactly, with TROS they pandered to the equivalent of comic book nerds and they probably won't be making as much money as TLJ, that should tell them something.
Though considering what kind of auteur Abrams is I'm not sure how much that's intentional.

Also any significant Star Wars after the originals (and some would say even the originals after the first one to an extent) always elicited strong opinions, I remember quitting the main Italian Star Wars forum because everything was a fight and this was soon after the prequel era. You can't appease Star Wars fans, might as well go with what worked best with the public that actually spends money and it seems it's turning out that TLJ is what that audience wants.

[Autohummer]

This may be unpopular opinion, but I like this new one more than the previous two, as it "fits" in what I feel is Star Wars. My only gripe would be that the fleet action scene should be a bit longer and more drawn out, to compensate the relative lack of it in the previous two. I watch Star Wars for the shooting and battle scenes and not really anything else. When I watched TLJ, I felt the script would be better off being made into a Star Trek movie (ala First Contact and Insurrection) rather than a Star Wars movie. TLJ would make a good sci-fi film by itself, even a good Star Wars spin off, but I just can't put TLJ as part of the main series comfortably.

Of course, this is coming from a person who actually likes TPM for the final showdown and is disappointed that Theed did not turn into Stalingrad, so don't take my opinions too seriously. My ideal Star Wars film would... probably be a three-hour long collection of fleet slugfests/door-to-door city fighting punctuated by crazy, desperate manoeuvres by the heroes to do something decisive to turn the tide, rather than the other way around like it is.

-Spoilery Rant below-

Spoiler:

Where did they find the people to man this many star destroyers in a hurry? Cloning? More importantly, where is the new Republic fleet? I know they were hand-waved away, being wiped when Starkiller blew up Hosian Prime, but does it make sense to do so story-wise? Wouldn't it be better if they showed up for the fleet battle as well instead of just civilian ships? Soldiers of the New Republic, how can you call yourselves soldiers when you let the people you're supposed to protect do the fighting for you?!

Also, while I love massive war sequences, can't they stop the lensman escalation of planet-killing WMDs?! At this rate the Final Imperial First Directorate New Order of the Truest of True Sith will be mass-producing planet-killer pistols by Episode XII! WMDs don't make for fun and epic war sequences if all you do is to just park a ship and fire a beam, dammit! If you want to do drama with planet-killers, do it like Lucy or Sath or even the original Death Stars or Starkiller. Just one superweapon, practically unstoppable, being the focus of the entire episode.

Actually, what's the point of having so many WMDs? The Final Order fleet is big enough that even if they were all conventional ISDs they would still have a very good shot at taking over the galaxy. The entire bloody planet was covered in ISDs, for God's sake. Hell, maybe it's ISDs all the way down to the planet's core. If they were conventional, the plot could revolve trying to stop the Final Order fleet as they subjugate the galaxy planet by planet, which (in my opinion) is more dramatic and sensible than a quest to completely stop the entire conquest before an arbitrary H-Hour. In fact, the fleet itself could be the main threat of the entire new trilogy instead of throwing out incoherent new threats every episode.

[Buckshee Rounds]

My ideal Star Wars film would... probably be a three-hour long collection of fleet slugfests/door-to-door city fighting punctuated by crazy, desperate manoeuvres by the heroes to do something decisive to turn the tide, rather than the other way around like it is.

The 2003 clone wars series was basically just that, it was gloriously over the top.

The last time I remember Star Wars doing anything interesting story-wise was KOTOR II. TLJ came very close to mixing things up, but then cowardly crawled back to the tired old formula. It's definitely not prequel-level bad, but it's the most frustrating of the films because of the clumsy plot choices and squandered potential. It had some solid ideas, but the execution is just plain bad.

Both Solo and TROS are basically empty nostalgia trips, which is fine for a spin off like Solo but near unforgivable for the conclusion of a mainline trilogy.

I disagree that Solo was a nostalgia trip, if anything Rogue One was far guiltier of that. It certainly had fanservice moments, like Maul for instance, but it was very much its own thing I felt. I actually quite liked Solo, because it was simpler and more sort of Western in Space, in the same vein as the Mandolorian.

[CP5670]

I saw this today. It was decent and had some good moments, but overall not as good as even the previous two SW movies. I liked TFA a lot but not TLJ or this one so much. My biggest issue is how they kept bringing back all the dead characters, which made all the deaths somewhat meaningless.

That the novelization of Revenge of the Sith is actually quite good proves that there was plenty of potential in the story the prequels wanted to tell if only they'd gotten better writing and direction.  The flaws were almost entirely in George Lucas's execution.

I've actually really wanted to read that story. Thank's for reminding me.

I found this one to be outstanding too, definitely one of the best SW novels written.