#because from the outside it looked to many like TLJ was the reason Ben’s plot changed

[writingwife-83]

I think it’s really interesting that according to Adam Driver, even after TLJ they were still sticking with the plan to keep Kylo Ren as a villain to the end. He said his character was still on the same track and in that scenario we’d never have seen “Ben Solo.” Can you imagine? 😟 I mean, yes TROS was a dumpster fire in a lot of ways, but I will always be grateful that they didn’t go the way they almost went. I’m grateful for what we got and for the fact that in some ways you could argue that they’ve now left it open for the possibility of more Ben Solo content.

[reylo-love-theme]

Specific personal reasons why Ben dying really hurt

Disclaimer: i know people have had many dif reactions to this movie and for those of you that liked it good for you. this is my personal opinion on my own blog so please don't attack or debate me in the comments just go make your own post please if you feel that. I respect you all and I'm just trying to cope.

This post is for people who are in a similar situation as me and want a place to relate or their thoughts turned into words.

1. I'm a childhood abuse victim myself and 2019 was a terrible year full of my trying to deal with my past and my cptsd and my toxic shame. I barely made it.

Ben Solo was a reminder that it's not too late to save yourself and that people you love do care for you. I literally leaned solely on reylo fanfiction during my darkest times for this aspect of hurt/comfort and redemption and recovery.

2. I had never went to watch a movie of my own free will (see number 1). Doing this was terrifying since I had to overcome so many triggers. I chose to watch TROS so that it would end my year on a happy note with a postive message of hope, love and recovery.

3. The only reason that I shipped Reylo was because I had investigated very throughly and had become certain they would get a happy ending.

I have a tendency of relying on fictional characters for the support I do not have in real life so I needed to choose who I love very carefully or else when I loose them I'm actually in terrible pain.

The worst thing was that I wasn't prepared for it. (Preparing and being nihilist had given me depression and I literally pulled myself out of that thought process for this hope of Ben living. It seemed so close to happening and I got stabbed in the stomach and left in a puddle of blood)

Now, I'm struggling really hard not to blame myself for falling for false hope again (I had made that mistake once and swore off hope for like 11 years) (even though I know that being so cynical is terrible for my health)

4.I stepped on Reylo in 2018/2019 fully and spent a whole year looking forward to this movie. It brought me so much joy and I tamped out my inner cynic that said "putting your hope in something you love will only let you down".

I told myself that even with all that has happened in 2019, making it to December and watching the movie would be symbolic for me (a way of saying "look world, I made it.")

5. The message the movie sends me is just.... I really can't. I don't understand why it couldn't be a happy ending for Ben who literally redeemed himself. For me personally, I don't consider a kiss and a smile and then death a happy ending. What does that mean for me? A person who related so heavily to this broken struggling character. Does it mean that all my pain was worth nothing in the end? That those who I love will never love me back or remember me or even care that I was abused and my trauma made me a literal walking self-defence mechanism? That the only ending the general population accepts as morally correct is for "bad" abuse victims to die?

And the message of Ben dying for someone he loves (while not a bad trope) is toxic because of the way it is shown. Even with the emoting on Rey's behalf, it's not enough to justify someone dying for that. (There just isn't enough romance or support from Rey (unlike TLJ)) It seemed like an unbalenced love (because of the way Rey just kept on rejecting him and hurting him without really trying to help (until the end where literally he sacrificed himself, would someone who loved you do that?)

And the additional message that Ben's family would help a random stranger but not the person that literally needed them and still loved them after all the abandoment he went through. My family literally turned a blind eye (or just blamed me as a weakling for reacting to it) to my abuse and that is what happens to Ben. Even at his death, not one single member of his family (Han was just a memory) was there to mourn him or even help him (Leia's disappearance thing I'm so confused on what the heck happened, why the heck did Maz smile if Ben just literally died and his mom died trying to save him.)

And no one bothered to be on his side, he literally had to redeem himself the whole way. That isn't a good message to people who need help. It's literally saying that you are the only one who can save yourself (not a bad message by itself but the strength of the message comes from the fact that others can stand by you as you save yourself not BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WILL OR WILL HELP YOU)

Anakin sidelineing him for Rey was just salt in the wound.

As someone who's pain was literally ignored and laughed at by the whole family, this was immensely rage inducing.

And what about rey and her character development? I also had related to her for being abandoned by her parents and left to fend for herself. She was a nobody who was strong on her own. She didn't need to be related to a strong lineage. Additonally, ending up all alone on the same kind of desert she started at is not a good message. ( I get the nostalgia thing but they could have literally used any other character, Rey wasn't a good choice for that scene) First off, she wanted to get off jakku. She wanted a family. Ben told her she wasn't alone. Next, she needed to realize that being a nobody didn't mean she was worthless ( a strong and powerful message to ordinary girls) (not find out oops i was from a loving family all along!!!) That isn't good plot when she literally spend two movies recovering from her parents abandonment (it makes it seem like ohhh they loved you and this was the only best

thing they could do!! XOXO (this is a common victim blaming trick abuse apologizers use to silence victims pain)) it would have made sense if she found this out earlier but to do this to an already developed character arc is just sucky. Her turning dark influenced by palp is not as good a message as her turning dark influenced by her past and her overcoming it anyway. For star wars, a theme has always been hope, love and redemption and I feel like the theme was picked up but not carried through in one character, instead spread throughout everyone but leaving a sense of unsatisfactory ending since no one really ended their arc. (In my opinion, you can have a different one)

6. Ben dying. That is just cruel and sadistic..there were already so many "surprise they are alive illogically!" Moments that JJ could literally have pulled one for Ben a final time and no one would have batted an eye. It would have suited the style of the movie. It was such a bad shock for me. The movie already baited my heart several times with Ben nearly dying and I cheered internally when he came back. I held out my hope till the very end of the credits and this movie just made of fool of me. I was ready to gloss over any and all flaws and buy merch if only Ben had been loved and lived.

7. The way it affected me. (Warning this might be upsetting to read so skip if you don't want to hear about mental health right now)

I was in so much shock as I stumbled out of the theater that I literallt thought I was going to be okay. I couldn't feel anything and I felt sick and empty. (That's not a reaction a star wars movie should give or any "hopeful" movie)(this is coming from someone who has watched the sacrifical death trope many times and cried (it was a good hurt))

This wasn't because there was literally no resolution or purpose to the death. It seemed like a cliche trope failure of redemption=death. But with the added on "no mourning, superfical loss". (It would have been more acceptably had it been a side character, bad writing can excuse it, but for a main half of the protagonist this is just sick)

I wandered home mechanically on Friday and then as soon as I thought back to the scene where Ben smiled and died I broke down crying. And I lost all my appetite and felt nauseous for an entire two days. I barely ate two meals during that time because I was so distraught and my mental health crashed completely back into my worse cptsd symptoms and nightmares and insomnia and waking up to panic attacks. I wasn't functioning, I kept trying to pull myself together but my only postive coping mechanism(reading reylo fanfiction) was gone. In fact I felt betrayed that my coping mechanism would actually be the cause of my pain.

I completely felt like those two days were actually traumatizing and as someone who has actually experienced traumatic events I'm using the word in a serious way. Anything can hurt you badly enough if you put enough of your heart and vulnerability into it.

Now it's Monday I'm just trying to recover enough to go outside again but I feel really tired. I'm trying to salvage my christmas and my life as a big middle finger to whoever decided that abuse and mental health could be used as convenient plot points and just discarded and laughed at.

[fangirling97]

TROS SPOILERS

I just want to know WHO? Who made the decisions for this movie. Was it J.J.? Chris Terrio? Kathleen Kennedy? Bob Iger? Who had the power here and who decided to take the most hopeful, beautiful story arc in the history of redemption arcs and end it with a very unsatisfying and disrespectful death?

It truly never seriously crossed my mind that Ben Solo would die in this film. I had faith in the creators to know that it would be the worst idea ever. Clearly I was wrong.

I’ve been doing my utmost to seek positivity. The fact is this movie has some of my favorite moments in the history of Star Wars. I genuinely fall in love with Ben Solo and the brilliant mannerisms and attitude he exudes every time I think about him. I thought I loved Kylo Ren...it’s nothing compared to Ben Solo.

The kiss is beautiful. Their faces kill me every time. I’ve never seen such pure joy and love like that.

The scene with Han and Ben genuinely makes me tear up every time I think about it and I full-on sobbed in the theater when I saw it. It’s everything I didn’t know I needed from this relationship and it only cements my love for these two characters deeper in my heart.

So much of this movie is even better than how I saw it in my head...so why do I feel physically ill when I think about it?

Ultimately I could forgive a whole lot. I can forgive the messy pacing. The lack of meaningful dialogue and the fact that we still have no idea how Palpatine is alive and that no one seems as concerned as they really should be...seriously, why is NO ONE like deeply shocked and concerned??

What I can’t forgive is the lack of respect to the characters and the previous movies.

Rey Palpatine: (I’ll get to Ben Solo, believe me) I remember hearing this theory ages ago and thinking well that’s never going to happen. Don’t I feel stupid? Well....no I don’t, cause really it never should have. Everyone has said it and I whole-heartedly agree that Rey Nobody is what we needed for this trilogy. Frankly, it makes me like her more that way. This story could have gone exactly the same way without her being related to the grossest and most evil man in the galaxy (please go listen to What the Force-Dark Union). There is literally no reason to make these characters related at all except to give Rey a family she has NO connection to at all. I’ve loved the way that each main character (Rey, Kylo/Ben, and Finn) have had to grapple with their personal histories and find a way to accept and move past them in this trilogy. Yet Rey doesn’t...at all. We are repeatedly told throughout this movie that you make your own family and that it doesn’t matter where you come from you are your own person...so WHY relate her (clumsily and without ANY foreshadowing or reasoning at all) to a truly despicable being that has no real effect on the person she is. It’s not unbelievable that every person has a fight between light and dark inside. They don’t have to be related to a villain to make sure we all get that.

Finn: I really don’t understand this character at all in this movie. Firstly, is there even an arc. I’ve seen it twice now and I really can’t see one. The only semi-interesting aspect is that he’s force-sensitive which I didn’t really want. Not because I don’t like Finn but he’s already an interesting and dynamic character without it. Finn being Force sensitive does not make him better in any meaningful way. If that’s really the direction you wanted to take him in then it should have at least been hinted at in TFA. And really? Really? We had to have the weird little secret through the whole movie? I honestly didn’t even notice that his force sensitivity may have been the thing he wanted to tell Rey through the movie (mostly because the movie is too busy for this tiny little piece). I don’t understand where the weird tension between Finn and Poe cane from and while I don’t mind the idea it felt like it came and went way too quickly and all the sudden it’s all grand cause the end battle is coming? And everyone has said it but I agree, I really think Rose made Finn a better character and apparently she’s just gone in this movie with NO addressing of their chemistry and romantic plot in TLJ...at all. It’s just weird and uncomfortable.

Luke: I have never been the biggest Luke fan but I was genuinely excited to see him in this movie. Though the Han scene is spectacular, I really wanted a little more from Luke and Ben. I really wanted Luke’s words in the first trailer to be to both Rey and Ben if not just to Ben himself. It felt important to have Ben face his uncle once again and be able to forgive (somewhat) and move on from that pain and betrayal. Instead, all Luke was used for was to call out Rian Johnson and deliver some very strange exposition that tbh I don’t even remember. The fact that our beloved hero’s scene in the final Skywalker movie is utterly unremarkable is a shame and I have to keep reminding myself it’s even in the movie. It doesn’t make sense for Luke and Leia to know Rey’s lineage and literally never say a word. Luke nearly killed Ben Solo for having darkness inside of him but Rey is the descendent of the most evil man in the galaxy (and a personal tormenter of the Skywalker family) and he just is totally cool with it...no.

Ben: This is really what hurts the most. I could forgive a lot (even Rey Palpatine though it will always be stupid) if Ben Solo had been able to live. The truth is I was enjoying the movie for the whole time until the moment when my favorite character of all time, the epitome of all that is Star Wars to me, died. Without any moment to mourn him. Stepping back, I can see the tragic beauty in this moment. He sacrificed himself to save the light and love of his life. And he’s happy to do it. He knows he can’t live without her. The problem is, Ben Solo has faced his tragedy already. Isn’t that the point? Isn’t that why he’s humanized so early in TFA. I have always loved Vader’s story and I do believe it was the right move to have him sacrifice himself for his son. But Vader was a monster and nothing more until the end of the RotJ. Kylo is nearly immediately humanized in making him the son of Leia and Han. In showing his face to the scavenger girl so quickly. Then pretty much the entirety of TLJ. It’s all showing his humanity. We should have all known (and many did) that redemption and the pull to the light is inevitable for Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren was never going to make it out of this trilogy but I sure believed Ben Solo would. I am in awe with the performance of Adam Driver in the third act of this movie (well actually all of it, but you know what I mean). Ben is completely different from Kylo Ren in almost every aspect. So many people have complained that Ben never actually has dialogue outside of the very endearing “ow”. I’ll be honest it makes me so sad and I definitely wanted to see some from him but I didn’t actually notice the lack of words the first time because of how much Adam is able to convey with every movement and facial expression. I knew exactly who this character was and I have never loved a character so much in my life. In these moments you can see every pain, betrayal, and weight is lifted from him. Ben is finally free of his pain. And now he can be the man he was always meant to be and it is staggeringly beautiful. And then he is thrown into a pit. Not allowed to fight the being that has tortured his family for the entirety of the saga. And is killed without a moment to grieve for us or for the love of his life. And I can’t get over it. I can’t see the logic in it. What’s the point? What’s the message here? Life sucks and then you die? THATS NOT STAR WARS!!!! Star Wars has always been tragic but there is always hope! Look at RotS. That is the saddest movie in Star Wars (till now) and it ends with the twins carrying the hope of the galaxy and their mother. Uncle Lars and Aunt Beru look into the sunset with hope as Obi Wan looks on knowing that if anyone can save the galaxy it’s going to be Luke Skywalker. Even if Obi Wan doesn’t believe that Anakin can be saved Luke is still worth everything to keep safe. In ESB Han Solo is frozen in carbonate, Luke is the son of the monstrous Vader, and the Empire is winning. Yet in the end Luke and Leia stand side-by-side, determined to make it all better. There is always hope in Star Wars yet I am left utterly hopeless by this movie. The only thing keeping me afloat is the idea that Ben Solo May live on due to the fact that we don’t see him at all in the end of HIS FAMILYS SAGA! (More on that in a moment). For the last four years Kylo Ren/Ben Solo has represented potential and hope. And now he’s dead. I can’t get over that. I hope Lucasfilm and Disney understand what he means to us and finds a way to bring him back. I don’t know what Adam Diver believed he was going to be completing but I can’t imagine this was the way it was supposed to be. Not when he loves this character as much as we do.

The Skywalkers: this is mostly a continuation but I had some specific things I wanted to address here. This is the Skywalker saga. I can say without a doubt this is my favorite fictional family ever. I love the drama and the angst and the importance they hold. I have never doubted that the sequel trilogy would hold up to that because Ben Solo (Skywalker) existed. Yet they are completely sidelined in this movie. I love Rey so so much but to introduce the idea of a Force Dyad with ultimate power in the Force and the to throw the Skywalker half off a cliff so that the two Palpatines can duke it out for the fate of the Skywalker Saga is just awful. I truly believe that Ben should have killed Palpatine (to stop Rey from being possessed by her creepy grandpa) and to be able to complete Anakins story. We even learn that Palpatine has haunted Ben in the same way he’s haunted Anakin (which is totally glossed over by the way, cause why is that important, right?) and yet Ben does nothing against Palpatine in the final fight. How does this make sense? I said all along I wanted an Anakin cameo in this movie and I was truly happy to hear Hayden’s voice in this movie but if Ben and Rey are dyads and representations of balance in the Force then why is she the Jedi that needs to rise? Shouldn’t they BOTH be that? The fact that this movie ends with no living Skywalkers is just bad and it hurts. I cannot understand the need for the Skywalker line to end just cause the saga is ending. Let Ben Solo and Rey have babies for goodness sake! And to be honest I don’t feel any emotion except disappointment and frustration at the whole Rey Skywalker line. She’s not a Skywalker, or if she is then she shouldn’t be alone. Loneliness has never been good in Star Wars. And yeah Luke and Leia show up as Force ghosts but that’s not real companionship and neither is BB-8. Rey is not meant to be alone and neither is Ben. Or do the most touching lines in TLJ mean absolutely nothing at this point. Now I can only hold on to Luke’s line, “no one is ever really gone.”

This ended up way longer than I meant it to but turns out I needed to get some of my feelings out. I’m frustrated at my inability to feel satisfied by all of the truly wonderful moments in this movie (Reylo is real and Ben is here once again). There are so many other things I thought too. Why does Rey decide to go into exile on Ach-To when she spent the whole last movie explaining why it doesn’t work to Luke? (Well it’s cause obviously TLJ isn’t important, that’s why everything was retconned,right? Except JJ said he didn’t do that...weird.) Why is it that Rey showed the Resistance how to get to Exegol when I personally think it would have been cooler and more meaningful to have the signal coming from a rogue tie fighter flown by Ben Solo? (Think about it. Han tells Ben to help the thing his mother lived for, the Resistance, he knows how to get there and it would have been a far more interesting moment then just having Finn tell us all what Rey means when we kinda figured it out for ourselves, thanks). Why didn’t Ben fly the Falcon at all in total acceptance of his true identity?

But ultimately these are the most important things I felt coming out of TROS. I fully expected this movie to be my favorite of the trilogy if not my favorite of them all. I’ve always like the Star Wars finales the most. RotS is my favorite of all of the SW movies with RotJ close behind. Really though, this isn’t a Star Wars finale it’s just dressed up as one. I hope there will be more things to come and I look forward to the future of Star Wars (with binary sunsets in the middle distance, of course). And I hope this isn’t really the end of Ben Solo, my hero.

Now to catch up on Clone Wars because Star Wars is where I go when I’m feeling down. Even if I’m feeling down about Star Wars.

[sunsabered]

𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐒 && 𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 && 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒;;;

As with a lot of people, I also have taken the liberty to make some changes to the canon shown in The Rise of Skywalker. I have been thinking about various of these changes for quite a while now and I genuinely hope they make sense at the end of the day as I am far more comfortable with this than what’s been given to us in canon. I respect anyone and their choice and this shall be mine. Under the cut all those changes, alterations and added details as well as thoiughts can be found. Please take a moment to read them.

➤ First and foremost because this needs to be said: My Rey is 𝐍𝐎𝐓 a Palpatine!! There is no relation between her and Palpatine; not by blood or in any other way!! For plot details view further below but in terms of family, this is 𝐍𝐎𝐓 a thing and never will be. ➤ Furthermore, I have come to the decision that my Rey is going to be a 𝐊𝐄𝐍𝐎𝐁𝐈. There will be a post further detailing why and how in the future because there are some details I’d like to work out about it. In the case that a Kenobi (be it Obi-Wan or someone else) is not okay with this, Rey will just be Rey from Nowhere/Rey of Jakku!!  ➤ Since the movie has failed to highlight this: While Rey was training over the year in between TLJ and TROS, she has in fact come to see many of the Resistance as her friends. This includes Connix as well as Rose, while having also found to hold highest regards for some of the commanding staff such as Commander D’Acy. ➤ While speaking of time: I felt the time frame the movie worked in was rather short. I believe it was mentioned at some point that from the time they decode the message until the actual attacks it is about sixteen hours? That, to me personally, seems like a very, very short time frame to do all the things that were done in the movie and while I still think that they had to act and react in a limited time frame, I personally will see the time a bit more stretched than mere sixteen hours. ➤ Rey did 𝐍𝐎𝐓 let Beaumont Kin translate the Jedi texts. That was, in my eyes, a huge waste on C3PO and while I do not doubt that she’d have accepted outside help, her primary advisor on the Jedi texts was C3PO. I am more than willing to write out potential things in case someone makes a Beaumont but my primary idea will base on C3PO!! ➤ The Force bond is very much still a thing and has popped up every now and then over the year with Rey trying her best to avoid the whole thing but not quite capable of doing so all the time. There is a sliver of hope inside her that this can still turn toward the good but her focus lies with the resistance as she has come to see them as family. Part of her is disappointed to a degree; but she is very much unsure if her disappointment lies with Ben for choosing Kylo Ren and power or with herself for having gotten her hopes up so high with him. ➤ On the topic of calling Ben ‘Ren’ or ‘Kylo Ren’: Rey sees him and always will see him as Ben so when she talks with Leia or thinks about him, he is Ben to her. When talking to him, he is Ben. But with the fact that not everyone knows that Kylo Ren is Ben Solo, she has opted to call him Ren from time to time while talking with people from the resistance simply because she respects that in her eyes it is not her story to tell; Rey respects Leia’s choice of not going about sharing the origin story of Kylo Ren. I don’t know if this makes sense; I genuinely hope it does. In the end, Ben is Ben in her eyes. ➤ Because I don’t want to neglect the fact that at the end of TLJ Kylo Ren claimed that Rey had killed Snoke, I will have this be part of the reason as to why Rey was spending so much time at the restance base and with her training. The training was needed but being someone accused of the murder of the former Supreme leader sure has put a target on her back. Rey does go on smaller missions every now and then though. She 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒𝐍'𝐓 just sit around the base without ever helping!! This is important; Rey is someone who refuses to sit by idly and while training her is very much important, she would insist on coming along every now and then. ➤ The decoded message from the spy claims that it is Snoke that returned or rather, was never dead to begin with and has a whole fleet of star destroyers ready to set out and take the galaxy by force. Please read below for further information about this as I am not going with the Palpatine route at all unless discussed and even then, very unlikely to happen. ➤ 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐀𝐍 𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄: The villain in this story is 𝐍𝐎𝐓 Palpatine. While I absolutely adore the villain of Palpatine, he is dead and should have remained as such. The movie absolutely didn’t do any favors to that character and since I feel that it does an injustice to various things and I feel that Snoke was entirely underused, the villain in this case -- (UNLESS DISCUSSED) is Snoke who has been on Exegol all along. In this case Snoke was an apprentice of Palpatine (potentially). As a former apprentice as well as someone who spent the last decades studying the dark side, he is very much capable of creating a second shape for himself. Perhaps via projection or cloning and that is what Ben killed during the throne room fight. In this case Snoke reveals himself in a twist of things. (Note: If you do insist on Palpatine, I will respect that but note that Rey will under no circumstances be his granddaughter). ➤ The fact that Poe, Finn and the others are coming along with her on the mission of finding the sith wayfinder means the world to her. While she hates the idea of risking anyone’s life but her own, she also has come to cherish these people and respects that they have to make their own choices. ➤ The events leading up to Pasaana are very much the same. They arrived, shortly after Rey has a force bond moment in which their location is revealed through a necklace. They try to escape and end up finding the hints they’d been looking for. Rey does heal the creature, already giving a bit of her life force. Chewie gets captured and when she sees a transporter leaving for the star destroyer, she panics and tries to fight for it, desperately trying to bring it back down. There will 𝐍𝐎𝐓 be any force lightning. Rey may carry around darkness but she is not a proper dark side user!! In the end it is the mix of power and emotion as well as desperation to free Chewie from the First Order that brings Rey to the point where the transporter explodes. She truly believes that she is to blame for it and the assumed death of Chewie. ➤ After that incident, her emotions are heightened. There is fear and anger and sadness over what she’s done, or rather believes to have done to, Chewie. This only makes her partially pull back. She does confide in Poe and Finn that she is terrified and feels as though something inside of her is changing. She admits to the visions she’s had about the dark side and the throne and sitting upon it. ➤ On this note: Rey very much does have visions and dreams except they’ve been getting stronger and more vivid over the year that had passed. I consider this both her manifestation of fear as well as meddling from Snoke. ➤ They still make their way to Kijimi and meet up with people of Poe’s (I personally find the spice runner story absolutely horrible but this is up to Poe muns) past. They decode the contents, the events still happen and eventually Rey senses that Chewie is still alive. This much follows canon. On the ship itself, be it via Ben or via data she finds, Rey is lead to believe that she is a child from a bloodline of dark force users and that her parents ran to protect her, sold her to protect her. While the initial abondment still stings, partially fuelling her emotions, there is also a new found feeling of knowing that they did in fact care for her to the point where they chose to sacrifice themselves so that she may live. ➤ Rey runs to reunite with the others but is cornered. The offer to join the dark side is made once more but she turns it down and leaves to find the wayfinder with the others.   ➤ Upon arrival on the planet, there is tension within Rey as she fears that time is running out. Being the impulsive, emotional kind but also not wanting to put her friends at risk within the ruins of the Death Star, she makes her way across the ocean but immensely struggles with the waves before finally making her way there. ➤ Upon the Death Star, after finding the second wayfinder, Rey’s emotions have come to hit a critical amount. The vision she sees of herself on the dark side, mixed in with more visions of what could be, are so intense that she is shaken to the core with anger, frustration and fear. It only makes her desire to find her way to Exegol that much stronger. When Ben crushes the wayfinder, her emotions bubble over and in a moment of anger she trikes at him. Rey is a very emotion based person and so the fight with Ben is a mess of her emotions coming to the surface in such a strong manner that it isn’t until she stabs him and feels Leia ( I am purposely leaving this vague) that she snaps out of it. Rey has a dark side as much as she has a light side and all though she identifies more with her light side, I will very much acknowledge that there is also darkness. I hope this makes some sense. If not, feel free to let me know. ➤ After stabbing him and healing him, Rey admits to having wanted to take that hand but points out that for her it was always about Ben and not Kylo Ren. While I see potential for them to talk more, with her remarking that she feels as though she doesn’t even know herself anymore - the potential for the ‘But I do’ line, she ends up leaving him there and making her way off the planet because in that moment her mind is filled with too many emotions for her to handle. ➤ As to how the healing happens; I personally had to think of a moment in Clone Wars in which The Daughter gave her life force to Ahsoka to bring her back from the dead. Somehow along with that and the fact that Ben and Rey are a dyad in the force, I could see either of them capable of such an act; a pure thing of giving and taking - balance combined with a very light force ability. I do truly hope that my thinking makes sense. However; I will never see this ability to just be used on everything all the time. I also definitely think that it takes a greater toll out of whoever uses it, when untrained, hence the energy drain shown. ➤ After leaving she goes to Ahch-To, searching for a moment to rest and figure out what to do. Ahch-To is a place that she considers calming to the mind. The same time it seems like the perfect place to hide away in exile. The idea crosses her mind and just as she is about to set fire to her way off the island, Luke turns up. It is through Luke that she finds out that the information about her heritage was false and that truly is a Kenobi and despite her wavering in the force between light and dark, her heart is in the right place. (In a thread with a Luke this of course up to the mun!!) She still receives Leia’s saber (or perhaps even Obi-Wan’s ? I would love to have a thread like that tbh ) and leaves for Exegol, intend on stopping Snoke with new found strength and knowledge. ➤ Rey arrives of Exegol and immediately storms in, knowing the resistance is on their way. Her movements are hurried as she is both nervous and driven by emotion but intend on killing Snoke and doing what she’d been accused of having done a year ago. There is a lot that goes into this and Snoke does still tempt her with belonging and of course the safety of all those she holds dear, showing her the resistance that has arrived and is struggling in the sky above them. It is then that she feels Ben’s presence (or perhaps they arrived together - at the same time, up to the mun) and eventually, through the force bond, hands him the second saber.  ➤ They eventually join up together, ready to fight Snoke who is revealed to be far more powerful than previously assumed just based on the fact that his scheming is revealed. Their bond is a bond in the force itself, a dyad and not something created by him or any other living being. It is revealed that he knew and was just aiming to use them for his purposes. He begins zapping the life force they hold between them and begins to drain them to the point where they collapse. They lie defeated for a moment but call out to the Jedi of the past, both connecting with them. ‘Be with Us’ instead of ‘Be with me’. ➤  The voice of past Jedi come flooding to them, chanting them on, telling them they can do it as a thousand generations of Jedi live on in them now, granting them the strength to lift up and face Snoke once more, stopping his lightning. Ben eventually is thrown into the abyss, with Rey worried for a second before having to face Snoke again, this time eventually summoning Ben’s saber to aid her, claiming that while he may be all the Sith, they are all the Jedi (referring to herself and Ben) and ends up frying him with his own, reflected lightning. The temple begins to break down around them. ➤ There is a moment of peace after the fight in which the dust settles and Rey looks up to the sky, now no longer filled with lightning but the resistance that is getting ready to crush the First Order/Last Order. There is relief before she turns toward the pit that Ben got thrown into. The idea crosses her mind to move toward it and see if he is okay but before that she collapses from her injuries and exhaustion from overextended force usage; her last thoughts being of Ben, Finn, Poe and the resistance - hoping they will all be happy and fine from here on out. ➤ Rey 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒 die after the fight! That is very much still a thing. I feel that if you combine everything she’s gone through -- from healing Ben and the creature in the desert, to the fact that her life force had been zapped and the fact that the temple around them is collapsing -- she is simply exhausted and hurt. With the knowledge that the resistance is safe, Rey considers this a sacrifice worth making. Exhaustion and having your life force zapped can take one hell of toll on you; in my eyes, anyway. Not to mention the fact that she did have a head wound at the end which I think is rather realistic considering the fact that the temple was quite literally falling down around them. ➤ Ben Solo does 𝐍𝐎𝐓 die or rather does 𝐍𝐎𝐓 remain dead!! I will of course leave it up to the Ben muns out there whether he gets help from his family’s force ghosts or if he never dies to begin with. There may be exception threads in which, after discussion, I will write Ben as having died 𝐁𝐔𝐓 those will be far and few in between. A very, very rare occurrence as I personally think Ben shouldn’t have died but gotten a chance to work on things. ➤ While I personally consider the kiss between them a canon thing, I will not assume that it happened unless the Ben mun is alright with it. It was a moment of relief and happiness so I very much think it is realistic to have happened. ➤ They leave Exegol together, both alive but weakened. There is a lot to rebuild and Rey intends to do her best to let the galaxy know that they are safe once more. Whether Ben comes along to the resistance or not is up to the Ben mun of course. Either way there is a lot to talk about between the two of them and all the others. ➤ Rey does indeed end up making her own lightsaber in the warmest orange; as happy and radiant as the sun itself because it reflects her inner values and ideas (I will make a proper post on that eventually; I just have a lot of thoughts on the matter). It  ➤ Months pass in which Rey trains harder, with Ben (up to the mun) but eventually decides that it is time to lay the sabers (depending on what route to go with, this means either Leia’s, the legacy saber and Obi-Wan’s or just Luke and Leia’s) to rest. They travel to Tatooine, retrieving a flask of sand outside the Lars homestead before making their way to Naboo. Based on what they both know and learned, they bury the sabers along with the vial of sand (representing the beginning) and something representing Alderaan in a small grave with a memorial stone near the lake of Varykino. Rey does not take the name Skywalker but instead acknowledges that she is a Kenobi, intending to tell the tales of the legend of Skywalker, intending to let the name itself rise as something good across the galaxy once more. If any living soul is someone to rise as Skywalker it is Ben, as in Ben Solo rising as the heir to a Skywalker legacy.  Thank you, to heartsabered!! For letting me read through hers for guidance.

[shadowsong26x]

EPIX/Rise of Skywalker Reaction Post

So, I got back from seeing EPIX this morning, and I figured I should get all my thoughts down!

Everything spoilery is behind a cut, and this post is also tagged with the spoiler tags I’ve listed here. If you want me to add any additional tags, let me know and I will to this and any future EPIX posts.

Okay, so, before I really get into this, I should mention two relevant contextual things that probably strongly impacted my feelings on this movie.

I’m not super-invested in the sequel trilogy. I love (most of) the characters, I’m not really into the story that’s being told with them.

Given where TLJ left us, I went into the theatre expecting something between A Trainwreck with Some Delightful Moments and A Delightful Trainwreck. Basically, it was going to be a Hot Mess and I knew it, but I was pretty sure there was going to be something to love, even if the film as a whole didn’t delight me (which, honestly, is even where I stand with TLJ, which remains my least favorite film of the series). And, you know what? I got exactly that. A Sometimes-Delightful Trainwreck. I’d say it’s even towards the upper end of that Delightfulness scale.

All right, moving on to actual thoughts. I’m trying to focus on the positive here, mostly because I did overall enjoy this movie, but I also had some Problems with it.

I’m gonna talk about Kylo Ren first, mostly because I want to get this out of the way. I will say that--when I first saw TFA, I thought I could be interested in this character. I thought they were gonna maybe go the burnt-out gifted kid route with him, which would be hella interesting to explore for the child of Heroes like Han and Leia, and the Legacy he had to live up to. Obviously, they didn’t, and while the direction they went is certainly topical, it’s not super engaging, at least to me. I know it is to some people, and far be it from me to harsh anyone’s squee, but he basically doesn’t do anything for me. I personally don’t find him particularly interesting or intimidating.

Basically, I don’t particularly care about Kylo Ren. (I don’t know if I’m quite at the point where, as my roommate puts it, I aggressively Do Not Care, but the Not Caring is definitely a thing.)

Anyway, that disclaimer aside--his arc was okay, I guess? I mean...I think my general feelings on the subject are not that it felt phoned-in, exactly, but that it was mostly there because the writers thought it should be there, rather than it flowing organically from the character(s) involved. It also felt rushed, but that goes back to a problem with the movie as a whole that I will get into later in this post. But, given that, the actual beats that were involved in said arc I thought were effectively done. The bit with Han in the wreckage, in particular, was nice.

As for that Kiss though.

...I mean. I’m actually kind of pleased that the end of the film left the romantic threads dangling? It gave me plenty of OT3 feels (though I felt like, especially in the first third or so, the film was leaning more towards Rey/Poe and Finn/Rose, but there was some later stuff that seemed to hint at the full OT3 with a question mark on where Rose stands.)

But I do have a problem with the fact that the only on-screen kiss between Major Characters was between Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo. That being said, I can backfill/justify it in that...you know how some people headcanon that Luke’s initial crush on Leia was some sort of “There is a Connection Here that I Cannot Name and it’s probably supposed to be Romantic given our ages and genders and presumed lack of other relationship so let’s go with that?” Between something like that and the fact that he just gave up his life for her in a very literal way (side note: the Force has always been New Powers as the Plot Demands; but the healing thing was a) if not actually in a canon novel at least strongly implied and b) ALL OVER fanon so even if I had a problem with Random Force Powers suddenly occurring I wouldn’t have an issue with this one; the Force Diad thing was ~handwave plot device~ sure fine whatever). ...anyway, given all of that, I can backfill it to a way where I don’t hate it (i.e., if he’d lived, I don’t think it would’ve been followed up on very much/they would’ve settled into a non-romantic relationship of some kind, whatever that might’ve been). Except that it’s the only one, which kind of leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Then again, he did immediately die, so...yeah, I can live with this. I don’t like it, and I don’t think I ever will like it, but I don’t hate it either and it’s not a dealbreaker for me.

Most of the other problems I have with this film come down to structure and pacing. In that, thanks to where TLJ left us, this move had to do so much to bring the story to any kind of cohesive end, and not enough time to do it in. Trying to squeeze too much plot into too small a space.

(I actually had the same problem with ROTS initially--although that was more due to the PT having pacing issues as its Primary Narrative Flaw; TPM was way too slow; AOTC actually had good internal pacing but couldn’t quite make up for it; and then ROTS was as a consequence of that really rushed. Meanwhile, with the ST, I feel like the writers are relying on “it’s all there in the manual” a little too much, so not really...trying as hard, if that makes sense? To make it all connect within the film, I mean, as opposed to depending on people going into other/outside/supplemental material to connect the dots (still not as bad as the Prisoner of Azkaban movie on that front, but it’s still Bad; and, like, all film versions of novels leave some stuff out, just look at the LOTR films; but POA left out a key plot point and that--is a rant for another post. Back to EPIX). It’ll be interesting to see what kind of deleted scenes come out, or if it’ll grow on me in future watchings. Not that it’ll ever become a favorite, I don’t think, but it might improve in my eyes.)

Anyway, basically, a lot of this felt rushed or like...introduced but not really addressed/wrapped up in any kind of satisfactory fashion? Kylo Ren’s arc in particular, as I’ve mentioned before, plus the Threepio stuff felt rushed and non-consequential, and also with Rey’s arc to an extent (it...again, all the beats worked for me/I thought it was fairly effective, but it really needed two movies to pay off as well as it could have). ...I mean, there are more plot threads I could probably mention here, but those are the three that stuck out the most.

Also, this movie needed More Rose :( I LOVE HER and she was barely here!!!!!

Another thing I would’ve liked to see is...okay, I really liked the Overlapping Voices bit, but it would’ve been nice to have more Presence from the ghosts? Like...there’s a bit at the end of season 1 of Sailor Moon where she’s in the Final Battle, the other four have died (or just been left behind, if you’re watching the English dub), and their ghosts show up and place their hands on hers and lend her their strength? A visual cue like that would’ve been great and helped the arc feel more complete. Especially since Palpatine had all of his predecessors/Sith ghosts backing him in a more visible fashion. But, then again, that’s a Personal Taste thing and while it would’ve, IMO, made that moment better, not having it doesn’t make it worse, if that makes sense?

(Also, the credits moved too fast for me to track, but I definitely saw Qui-Gon Jinn listed, though I don’t recall hearing him, and I definitely recognized Anakin/Hayden Christensen and Mace/Samuel L. Jackson and Obi-Wan/Ewan McGreggor (and Alec Guinness I’m pretty sure?) and obvs. Yoda/Frank Oz when actually listening, but I couldn’t identify the other voices--anyone have the full list? Was Ahsoka and/or Kanan and/or Ezra involved, or was it restricted to movie-only Jedi?)

But...yeah. Apart from the Kiss being very ....:/ for me, most of my identifiable problems with the film is stuff like this.

I think the other thing I want to talk about in detail is the Rey Palpatine reveal.

So, up until this movie, I was actually in my corner flying my tiny but determined Rey Kenobi flag, and the more I think about it, the more I like Rey Palpatine for some of the same reasons? Like...I don’t remember everything I’d thought through about Rey Kenobi, but it had to do with the cyclical nature of Star Wars, and bringing it back where it started--and we get that with Rey Palpatine, in a nice arc, healing some of the damage her grandfather did, both to this family and to the galaxy as a whole.

That being said--those of you who know me and my fic projects know I’ve been writing a child (daughter) for Palpatine for quite some time now, and I have no intention of stopping, lol. Am I going to take this/Lavinia’s (presumably) half-brother into account in future projects? ...probably not. But I am looking forward to/hoping we get a novel or something about him and Rey’s mother. Because that is actually a story I’m interested in--why canon!Palpatine chose to have a kid, and how said kid managed to break away and got to this point. [...y’know, I actually think Rey Kenobi’s background/thread of descent would be less interesting to me? Since I subscribe to the idea that a) Korkie Kryze is Obi-Wan’s biological son; and b) Obi-Wan had many Friends With Benefits throughout the galaxy and figuring out exactly which one Rey descends from carries less weight for me.]

...okay, I think that’s all the Detaily Bits I want to get into, so here are some bullet points of things that really stuck out to me, in no particular order:

Bawled like a baby re: everything involving Carrie Fisher. Just...yeah. Miss you Space Mommy.

LANDO! I loved his entrance, I loved him adopting Jannah at the end, I loved all of it.

Chewie’s fake-out death was also actually pretty good/well-handled. I mean. First Boom happens and I’m like DDDDDDD: but then I remember how people reacted to his death in Legends and I’m like would they really do it and then DELIGHT.

HUX. Okay. I never really cared about this dude before, and honestly I still don’t really care about this dude but at the same time, those of you who know me know I have a Thing for double-agents and defectors and I LOVE THIS WHOLE ENTIRE PLOT THREAD. I LOVE THIS SHITHEAD TURNING TRAITOR FOR THE MOST VENAL REASONS AND STILL BEING A BAD GUY/EVIL/AN UNREPENTANT JACKASS. THIS WAS PERFECT.

(Also Finn shooting him in the leg instead of the arm as requested was DELIGHTFUL)

SPEAKING OF DELIGHTFUL gotta love Zombie Skeev Palpatine Unliving His Best Afterlife. Was he as Delightful as he is in ROTS or ROTJ? No. Did I still enjoy every minute of his scenery-chewing nonsense? You bet your ass. So happy, Ian McDiarmid looked like he was having tons of fun and honestly what more could I have asked for?

The whole scene on Ahch-To was just *chef’s kiss.* Use of Yoda’s theme with the rising X-Wing, Luke being snarky and kind and beautiful, him emerging from the fire with the saber...just loved it.

LEIA HAD JEDI TRAINING AND HER OWN LIGHTSABER. BB!MARK HAMILL AND BB!CARRIE FISHER’S FACES.

LEIA TRAINING REY. REY CALLING HER ‘MASTER.’

USING THE BOND TO ARM KYLO REN okay like I said I have Mixed Feelings about the arc as a whole but that moment was SO COOL.

Poe’s ex-girlfriend was pretty great, ngl.

JANNAH AND EX-STORMTROOPERS YESSSSSSSS

HINTS OF/SHREDS OF EVIDENCE FOR FORCE-SENSITIVE FINN GIVE THEM TO ME NOW.

D-0 was pretty cute!

All of the Badass Finn.

Also that MOMENT where Finn runs up to Poe like “I NEED TO TELL YOU A THING” and Poe is all “I NEED YOU TO FIGHT WITH ME” and Finn just interrupts himself to thank Poe and they have that “General” “General” moment and it’s SO CUTE I’m love it.

The entire thing at the Lars farm at the end. Just. Burying the lightsabers, seeing the twins’ ghosts, claiming the Skywalker name, Rey having her own saber now. This movie was a Hot Mess but it definitely ended on a high note.

...that’s pretty much what I have for right now. I will probably have more thoughts after discussing it with other people/seeing it again (because I will be seeing it again). But overall...do I like it? Well, it’s Star Wars, which I love and which frankly always has some Super Dumb and/or Frustrating Stuff, and the things I disliked weren’t bad enough to Ruin It for me, so yes, I liked it. Is it my favorite Star Wars/good for a Star Wars movie? ...not really, no. It did have some gorgeous moments, but it doesn’t really hang together. Like the rest of the ST, it relies way too much on It’s All There In The Manual and, between that and the fact that TLJ didn’t do the work necessary to set it up, the movie felt rushed and a little bit...I don’t want to say hollow, maybe shallow is a better word? I mean, I know this is Star Wars and It’s Not That Deep (but the ground is soft and I’m ready to dig or however the quote goes), but this felt particularly shallow even for Star Wars. Like...cotton candy, fairly good/tasty but a little bit prone to melting away and with very little substance holding it together. On that level, I’d actually probably rank it around Solo (which, let me say, I really like)--so, better than TLJ, but still A Hot Mess of a movie. But I enjoyed myself, and I think overall my feelings are middling-to-positive on it. Even if...honestly, even like less than four hours after the movie ending, I’m already forgetting like half the plot points...? Like I said. Cotton Candy.

What did/do you guys think?

[red-applesith]

Did Rian save the Knights of Ren by changing one detail of the Force vision?

The Knights of Ren are one of the remaining mysteries of this new trilogy, one many look forward to discover in IX and love to speculate about.I remembered Rian addressing their absence in VIII during an interview he had given to the Empire Film Podcast but had never really given much thoughts about it until I tried to find a transcript of the conversation (unfortunately there is no full re-transcription of the 2 hours long podcast but a few articles picked up the relevant parts).Here is what Rian had to say about the Knights of Ren:

Rey’s force vision in The Force Awakens gave birth to a ton of speculation and the presence of the Knights of Ren around Kylo Ren made it one of the most dissected 30 seconds of cinema in recent years.

That’s why, reading those lines out loud, I squeezed my eyes and tried to picture the Throne Room with the Knights of Ren in lieu of the Praetorian guards, then the Force Vision with the Praetorian Guards in lieu of the Knights. Then the throne room again, then the Force vision...

That’s when the remark of Rian took a very specific meaning.

In Force Awakens J.J.Abrams gave Rey her first Force vision - upon discovering the legacy saber stashed away in Maz’s basement, our heroine glimpses what has been in the past and what is still to come - A premonition so upsetting Rey runs away, refusing the call to adventure, only to be forced into the arms of destiny (quite literally).

As a fandom we pretty much agreed from the start that the words spoken to Rey by Maz in the corridor were a clever bit of foreshadowing regarding Ben Solo’s redemption.

On the other hand there’s still much to discuss about the sequence in the rain because the presence of the Knights around Kylo Ren renders the timeline ambiguous. Is it the past? Is it the future? Did Kylo sense Rey and that’s why he was moving towards her? Who is the Clan leader?

Today I want to postulate that in TFA the sequence in the rain is actually Rey’s premonition of what is going to happen in the Throne Room.

To illustrate this theory, allow me first to draw parallels between how the two sequences play:

It works, right?

‘But!’ you’re going to say ‘there are many elements that are different between the two scenes, including most importantly the presence of the KOR’ which is why I’d like to delve into more details under the cut.

1. Visions in the Star Wars universe

“The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is.”

– Yoda

If there’s one thing the Jedi and Anakin taught us is that Force visions are not documentaries. They are made of symbols that are meant to speak or inspire a truth to the beholder (not even ‘the’ truth)

In the case of Rey, her latent Force powers just awakened and she’s never experienced anything like this before so it’s no wonder her first reaction is to panic and flee. Keep in mind that she has no idea what she’s seeing and how to interpret it - except for the part about her childhood of course.

That part she knows all too well, but as it’s been established she’s not ready to accept the truth at the start of her journey, which is why in insight, perhaps Rey doesn’t flee because she’s scared of meeting and fighting the monster from the vision but because she’s trying to flee the truth inside herself.

And the truth is precisely what Rian needed Rey to confront to allow her character to grow in TLJ. That’s why I believe that Rian kept the vision as the blueprint for the Throne Room because it was a good scene but also decided that not all elements of the vision needed to be incorporated. The KoR are a minor detail in the scene after all. Rey’s turmoil is what really matters.

2. Codename "Clan Leader"

Before I delve more into the symbolism and metaphors of the Force vision, I’m going to discuss the codename “Clan leader”.

Because we focused a lot on the Knights in that scene before TLJ came out (and even after), it never occurred to me before I started to connect the dots that clan LEADER may have been the most obvious, in your face piece of information given about the identity of the guy killed by Kylo in that scene.

After all there are plenty of clans in the Star Wars universe - Mandalorian, Padawan, witches, etc...

In that respect, Clan leader could refer to almost anything, really.

Except that, as a fandom we were keen to observe that said Clan Leader was about to strike Rey, and that by killing him Kylo Ren was actually saving her.

Does that ring a bell? Because that’s literally the plot of the Throne Room - The Supreme Leader brags that he plans to kill Rey “with the cruelest stroke” only to be betrayed - and cut in half- by Kylo.  

Nuf’ said.

3. Metaphors and emotions

As mentioned previously, visions are not very good at giving out details of what is going to happen exactly. At best, they are filtered by the individual receiving them, at worst they’re bent to fit one’s personal fears and end up becoming self fulfilling prophecies of doom.

That’s where I think it’s interesting to postulate that if Rian did use the Force Vision as blueprint for the Throne Room, he chose to be pretty straightforward about it, which is why the only true difference is the absence of the Knights of Ren.

So, let’s examine further two key elements of the Force vision to see how ‘similar’ the seemingly differences actually are.

The backstabbing

Like established a few lines above, in TLJ Kylo betrays Snoke to save Rey. So is it a coincidence that we see him backstabbing the clan leader in the vision? You can argue a lot about Kylo, that he’s unhinged and unpredictable at times, but there’s something that TFA and TLJ established very well, it’s that he has a certain moral code. Although he’s scared shitless to see Luke appear on the battlefield, he still gets out of the comfort of his shuttle to face him one-on-one. When he fights Finn, he acts like a peacock but he only uses his lightsaber, never once trying dirty Force tricks.

So how are the chances that he would strike an opponent in the back? Probably nil to be honest.

But what else the act of backstabbing evokes automatically? Betrayal.

That’s the reason why I believe that the Vision is the visual representation of Kylo’s betrayal of Snoke.

The storm

The final element I want to draw attention to is the storm. Bodies are piled up on the ground, the rain is lashing down, tying the vision of Luke and artoo to the vision of Kylo Ren and the KoR. Rain in Star Wars always seems to bring a sense of heightened dramatic tension and that’s why Rey fights Luke under an identical stormy night sky.

Of course, it doesn’t rain aboard star ships. Although we have this lovely, almost intimate “fiery rain” all around Rey and Kylo.

But coming back to the vision, my proposition is that the storm is a visualization of the battle raging inside and outside the Supremacy. The Resistance fleet is being decimated by the First Order. There’s a sense of danger and urgency as Rey is standing in the middle of it all.

Conclusion

This meta is already getting longer than I wished so I’m going to wrap it up here. All I really wanted to say is that, whether Rian did or didn’t use Rey’s Force vision as the blueprint for his Throne Room, I’m glad he decided to spare the Knights and I hope we’ll finally see them in IX.

[thebastardofgloucester]

Okay, so. Thoughts on the mess that was Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi.

- I can see why a lot of people had a big problem with Poe’s arc – mostly that it started him from such an obnoxious place that wasn’t entirely in keeping with his portrayal in Before the Awakening or the comics (honestly I think his character in TFA is sufficiently thin that it wasn’t really out of the realm of possibility). There’s also the component of the Angry Latino Man racist trope with his aggression towards Holdo and Leia. Leia slapping him was unnecessary. Leia stunning him so he flew back into a wall(?!) was really unnecessary, and combined with brutalization of the other characters of color was a Problem.

- But nonetheless I loved where it ended up. I did love Poe learning the brutal lessons of command, putting him in a place to be Leia’s successor as the leader of the Resistance. He is a hotshot pilot. Going from that to general, with all the need for long-term thinking that requires, is not an easy leap. So while I understand where people who hate it are coming from, I think that Poe’s journey to becoming Leia’s heir to the role of leader is the most compelling part of the film.

- God Luke was a mess. His grumpy old man act was funny but it hurt so much to see Luke, the beating heart of the OT, reduced to a bitter version of Obi-Wan, minus the hope of believing in the future. TFA and TLJ utterly broke Luke in a way that was just…too much. And god, he would never draw a weapon on his fucking nephew, no matter how scared he was. He might aggressively confront Ben, trying to get him to give Snoke up, go after the source, but killing his nephew out of fear? What? W H A T ?

- that said, that was the most meaty material Mark Hamill has ever been given and he fucking killed it, so props to him.

- What was Rey even doing through most of this movie. All the clarity and dynamism of her character was just sucked away and outside of some moments on Ahch-To she was either a prop in Kyle Ben’s narrative or a walking deus ex machina. She technically becomes the Last Jedi and turns her back on Ron but like…we didn’t see any of that? Does she even want to be a Jedi?

- look…I have been on the Rey Skywalker train forever. I am not happy with her being from unremarkable origins (assuming Kyle is telling the truth, and given that he is a manipulative abusive asshole he may not be) in part because it actually feeds the unfair idea that she’s somehow unrealistic (whatever that means in a space wizards franchise) or a Mary Sue character. She shows a level of skill, instinct, and power that has previously only been manifested by…Anakin Skywalker. That needs an explanation. Either she’s a Skywalker, or a vessel or champion of the Light Side of the Force, or some other shit, but there does need to be a reason. Luke and Anakin have a reason – they are Skywalkers, one Space Jesus and the other the son of Space Jesus.

- I have no idea what motivated Rey for so much of the film. Her quasi-Bespin going to Kyle thing was a fucking mess and required a lot of idiot balling. Rey is smarter than that. Rey saw Kyle murder his father – she would not just trust him enough to go alone. Basically Rian either did not get Rey as JJ Abrams made her or he didn’t care. Either one is utter bullshit. Some cool action sequences mean nothing without the character dynamics to back them up.

- God, Finn…Rian took the problematic aspects of Finn’s comic relief role from TFA and just…ran with them. I didn’t object to him trying to run off to find Rey – he has no real attachment to the Resistance. But his whole mission is just…pointless. There’s no follow up on his being a Stormtrooper who overcame his programming. We get some interesting stuff with Rose about his being a legend when he’s not comfortable in that role, and I kind of liked the way his self-sacrificing behavior was called out by Rose so he knew that besides Rey people actually cared about him, but…there were so many missed opportunities, and so many unnecessary injuries and physical jokes.

- I love Rose. I do. I don’t know that there was really a place for her in this story. Her ‘eat the rich’ working class background was cool, she’s a huge sweetheart, Kelly Marie Tran gave a great performance. Her romance with Finn was a rushed mess. A crush I can believe, fine. Love after like two days max? No. They didn’t earn that. Honestly if you are going to introduce your first significant woc you have to find more to do with her. It was nice that (unlike Leia and Luke) she got a chance to grieve her losses

- Kyle Ben’s eventually becoming the irredeemable supreme leader actually works pretty well, but how it got there…on the other hand…Kyle shows his true colors when he turns on Snoke…in order to take his place in the finest traditions of the Sith. He’s the full-fledged villain for episode IX. As it should be.

- What the fuck was Snoke. Why did the film bring him and Rey and Kylo together in an awkward and forced series of developments and then just cut him in half. We have no idea where he came from, his relationship to the Empire, his goals, his plan with Kyle and Rey and Luke…it’s just an enormous blank and we’ll never get an answer because Rian got bored and just decided to off him. It’s not like I care about him as a character, obviously. His death hardly upset me other than the fact that it was pretty bad writing.

- why the everliving fuck did we have to have YODA show up, basically to give a non-chalannt mea culpa and say ‘actually the Jedi were kind of shit.’ Like ANAKIN? Why the fuck would you not use the person the Order failed the most. Also Yoda looked fucking terrible I have no idea why they used a puppet AND CGI.

- On the plus side, Leia did a truly spectacular Force Thing (though that was some cheap shit by Rian spacing her like that). Then she was unconscious. She never got to mourn Han at all. She passed the torch to Poe, but I can’t help but be disappointed when so much was promised. Also…no one came to her aid? I know that in Bloodline her parentage being revealed ruins her reputation and strips her of her influence…but no one? What the fuck?

- DJ was just a useless character. Maybe they’ll be a payoff in episode ix, but he serves no purpose but to set up an inconsequential betrayal, unless you count Phasma dying (also a cheapening of her character as laid out in her novel) as a tremendously important moment. All the damage was done by Holto’s sacrifice. Finn and Rose and BB-8 were pretty incidental.

- the Porgs were stupid space puffins and despite myself I’m kind of fond of the stupid things. The crystal foxes were much cooler, of course.

- R2D2 and C3PO were props in this film. Chewbacca too.

- Luke…weirdly his facing his fears and sacrificing himself was one of the best parts of the mostly-okay third act? I liked the new, less flashy but still impressive Force power of projection, and he got some chance to say goodbye to Leia at least, and he got to lay down the law to Kyle Ron. But…he died alone. That’s not fucking okay. That’s a betrayal of Luke, the heart of the original trilogy. It’s just…wrong. And it’s sad and heartbreaking but not really in a satisfying way. And he never really passes the torch to Rey – he sacrifices himself to fix his fuck-up with Kyle. He deserved more than that. All the Skywalkers did.

- the space battles were pretty great, the whole tracking thing and the slow race was very Battlestar-y, even if the mechanics of the plot were a bit questionable.

- I need to read Leia Princess of Alderaan to get the backstory on Holdo. Her character was interesting (though we could have used more backstory or elaboration on how she became so respected a military leader) and her relationship with Leia was tantalising but there just wasn’t enough. Her heroic sacrifice was fucking awesome though. If she had to go out she picked a good way to do it.

- Billie Lourd got a character and lines and that was pretty great.

- Okay, minor nitpick that actually REALLY BOTHERED ME. Among the casualties in the opening battle appeared to be Temmin ‘Snap’ Wexley, one of the protagonists of the Aftermath books, and the son of the delightful Norra Wexley. Like, first, Mister Bones would fucking swim through space and stab Kyle Ben with his vibroknives because he is Norra’s motherly love incarnate in a psychotic droid. And second, Norra deserved better. She’s probably dead now and that is bullshit in itself.

- Or it might have been another bearded guy, in which case like Jessica Pava his absence bothered me. Like…where did these people go?

- blowing up the bridge to kill Ackbar et al was just cheap bullshit honestly

- the war profiteering and moral ambiguity was not elaborated enough to justify its inclusion, honestly. I’m not averse to that sort of moral ambiguity but you have to earn it to stick it into a Star Wars film. They didn’t. And again, DJ was just useless.

So, yeah, to review – this is not a movie I was ever going to like. I got almost nothing I wanted out of it, it fucked over the Skywalkers royally in a way that left me feeling bitter and betrayed, it misused or wasted Finn and Rose, Rey’s character was inconsistent at best with little to no on-screen development. The opening was strong. The second act was an epic dumpster fire, particularly everything with Kyle and Rey and Snoke and everything that led there. The third more or less pulled the majority of story threads out and left them in an interesting place for JJ Abrams in episode ix to maybe do some interesting things, but the path it took to get there had…problems.

Rian doesn’t love Star Wars like I love Star Wars, and he really doesn’t like the Skywalkers. I guess that’s what some people wanted – for an end to the Skywalker-centric narrative. Personally I think that is utterly missing the point of literally everything about this series, but whatever, people will disagree.

The writing was overall clumsy to outright bad, with bursts of inspired storytelling but mostly buried under Kyle apologism.

Corvus fairly points out that The Empire Strikes Back is not nearly as good as movie as it is without the events of Return of the Jedi, so to an extent it’s hard to fairly judge the film when you don’t know where it is in the overarching story. But equally this film had so many opportunities to develop the characters and build the world and it just. Did not.

As for a rating, it depends when you ask me. I’d rate it somewhere between a 5 and 6/10. Maybe a 4 in some aspects. It’s not Attack of the Clones bad, but it’s worse than Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens, A New Hope, ESB…I mean, I liked Rogue One more. Frankly Revenge of the Sith was more emotionally satisfying, especially in the context of the Clone Wars series. I’m never really sure where to rate The Phantom Menace. This might be better. I’m not entirely sure, and that’s pretty damning,

I’m just…so disappointed and frustrated and have basically decided to treat the new canon post RotJ as more of alternate universe than anything else. Which is kind of sad, honestly.

tldr; Anakin Skywalker Did Not Die For This Shit

[coltonllenos-blog]

The Last Jedi is the Best Star Wars Movie Since ‘Empire’...What?!

Film is subjective, you can like or dislike any movie you want and you are not right or wrong for it. I am not here to tell you that you are wrong in disliking The Last Jedi, it is naive and futile to argue against someone else's subjectivity.  I am writing this because I am seeing the same reasons for why people didn't like the movie over and over again. Some of these reasons I agree with, some I disagree with, and some I feel are invalid altogether. I also feel that none of these reasons are sufficient enough to warrant the absolute vitriol, accusations of childhood murdering, personal attacks on Rian Johnson and crew, and complete chastising of every positive opinion on the movie. I also feel like a lot of these points are inconsistent with our treatments of the other Star Wars movies. In this article, I am going to approach every MAJOR problem (Sorry Benicio, your stutter didn't make the cut) with this movie, as well as expand on them and why I think they are invalid, unimportant, and even sometimes right. I will do this by doing my best to put aside my bias for Star Wars, and against detractors of the film. Instead I will focus on VERY basic screenwriting concepts, logic, and evidence. I am imperfect though, so if I screw up please forgive me. This is not a paper full of apologies for the movie, it is a compilation of arguments against claims against it. I feel like that is an important distinction to make. Feel free to skip to sections relating to you if you deem it necessary.

I began this writing excercise by giving myself a few rules:

1. I will be using the original trilogy for most of my comparing and contrasting. I like the prequels, but they are easy targets and there aren't many examples where I can use them to give weight to my argument. So I'm focusing on the "good" ones. 2. I am familar with a majority of New Canon novels, comics, tv shows, etc. But I will not be citing them for ammunition either. While I believe that the ancillary material does add to the viewing of the movies, it is not and should not be necessary. Therefore, I will not lean on the easy out of "If you've read the books..."

Without further ado, let's get started.

1. Time I will begin with some outside influences that may have affected some people's view of the movie, with the first one being time. The Force Awakens left us on a cliffhanger, and with it came with two years of speculation about what would happen next. Over two years we all placed our bets on Rey's parents, who Snoke is, what is Luke going to say, what will Luke do, etc. Remember that episodes 7, 8, and 9 are telling one story. When you can watch all three consecutively, your personal expectations will no longer be an issue and a lot of people's problems will become moot points. If you hold onto your initial hopes for the movie every time you watch it and let it ruin your view of it, well, that's not my problem. I will address this aspect as it becomes relevant further into my thesis.

2. Marketing If there's one thing you can count on to whet your appetite without spoiling anything, it's Disney's marketing department. In an age where all trailers are either too spoiler-heavy or just plain bad. Disney for the most part is batting 1000 in the marketing department. But with that there are some setbacks. With both TFA and TLJ we saw in the marketing an emphasis on things that were not important, the biggest example being Captain Phasma. The marketing also played into the fact that Star Wars fans love to speculate and intentionally stoked those flames. The Last Jedi's final trailer had all kinds of teases that got everyone talking. My grand point in bringing up these two issues that exist independently of the movie is that The Last Jedi is a two and a half hour movie and it should be watched as such. It is not 2.5 hours+ two years of guessing and it is certainly not 2.5 hours + the marketing leading up to it. As time passes, the marketing, all your speculating, and bad Snoke theories will become irrelevant, and you will be left with the movie.  The Last Jedi works a lot better without all that baggage.

Now this is not to say that your own expectations hurting your view of the movie is completely your fault. If all the time and marketing leading up to The Last Jedi didn't completely define your expectations, it certainly gave you all the tools needed to make them yourself. And if you fell into that net there is a fair share of blame to be spread around, but none of it goes on the movie itself. Rian Johnson made the best movie he could and the time and marketing have no place in between the opening crawl and the closing credits. So don't put them there. If you feel like you should, that's fine. I wholeheartedly disagree and I've made my case for doing so. Now into the actual movie itself...

3. Killing Snoke Snoke. Was. Not. Important. He never was, and The Force Awakens did not say he was. The only thing that was even remotely interesting about him was Andy Serkis' excellent performance, and the fact that we didn't know anything about him. He is treated exactly as Palpatine was treated in the original trilogy and no one seems to have a problem about that. Palpatine didn't even have a name in the original trilogy. He was introduced as a hologram in Empire, and killed off in a cartoony fashion in Jedi. Art is subjective, and if you want to hate that we didn't learn about Snoke that is your choice, but be consistent and hold the original trilogy to the same standard. Sure, the prequels explained how Sheev Palpatine came to power, but they also did not tell us why he is strong or where he came from. It is not The Last Jedi's fault that we latched onto Snoke's two or three scenes and blew them way out of proportion for two years. Not only was Snoke not supposed to matter to us, he never mattered to our heroes. I don't think Rey cares where he came from, how he knows the force, or why he's so strong, and to bring the movie to a screeching halt in order to explain it would have been the bad kind of fan service because there is no one in the movie who cares. If Luke had stopped to explain he might as well have just stared at the camera while he did it. Snoke was a plot device to further the character of Kylo Ren, who is this trilogy's real antagonist. The fact that he didn't feel like a plot device proves that he was a good one. If you care that much to know everything about Snoke, there will be plenty of supplementary material around the corner. But Episodes 7-9 are not Snoke's story, they are Rey and Ben Solo's. Speaking of which, let's look at the character of Ben Solo and why his murder of Snoke was, in my opinion, the absolute perfect choice. Ben's character arc in TFA and TLJ are pretty similar if not the same. He is learning to step out from the shadows of having legends for relatives and be his own person. We are lucky enough to get to watch our main villain actually become a villain throughout these movies. Kylo Ren is an immensely more interesting character than Snoke because we get to see him become who he is. Kylo Ren's character arc could not come to a satisfying end if he was always answering to a master trying to turn him into a new Vader. By killing Snoke, Kylo Ren removes all subserviances to other people's expectations of him and puts our villain on the top of the tower where he belongs, as well as eliminating the tired Master-Apprentice dynamic we've seen in 6 Star Wars movies already. Now we have an Episode 9 where the most complex villain of the entire series is now the sole and very unstable commander of the galaxy's greatest military force, and I believe that is the most compelling status quo to bring into our third act.

4. Too funny I can agree with that. I'm not going to defend every joke by saying that comedy has always been in Star Wars so you should just get over it. Personally I think there are a handful of jokes that, while they may be funny, I would rather not have in the movie. Luke throwing the lightsaber was a little too meta and made a gag out of an intense moment, Poe's prank call was good, but ran a little long, and I think BB-8 driving the walker would not be as bad as it is if it weren't followed by Finn and Rose doing a Statler and Waldorf impression in the midst of a destroyed ship. I think some of the jokes were badly timed and actually did halt the flow of the movie. Remember in Cloud City when our heroes were running for their lives from the Imperials and they stopped so that R2 can electrocute himself in a power socket? Same problem, it's not new. Other than the jokes I pointed out, I think all the comedy was well placed, funny, and not at all to the detriment of the movie. But comedy is so varied and subjective that I'm not going to sit here and type out why something was funny or not, you already know. Instead I'll ask you to think if you are letting one or two misplaced or unfunny jokes ruin all the comedy in the movie, or even the whole movie for you.

5. Rey's Parents Rey's biggest weakness is her parents. How satisfying would it be if the one thing she thought she needed was handed to her on a silver platter? I prefer my characters to have obtacles to overcome and internal struggles that they need to come to peace with. She tries to pass on her destiny to Luke, and when he refuses multiple times she tries to pass her destiny onto Kylo. She never wants to take the responsibility on herself. By telling her she comes from nowhere, that she's nobody, she is forced to accept who she is, and not where she comes from. In a Q&A online with Rian Johnson he says it best. He says that when Luke hears that Darth Vader is his father, it is the hardest thing he could possibly hear. That is one of the reasons it is so impactful. If it was easy for him to accept, it wouldn't be compelling. So why do we want to give Rey the easy way out? I think that when all a character's struggles are external: Man v. Man, Man v. Nature, etc. it can make for an interesting story, but not an interesting character, at least not one with depth. Rey's parents being nobody furthers the theme of Star Wars that heroes can come from nowhere, punctuated by Broom kid at the end. It also challenges our character's sense of who she is. This is also apparent in the cave sequence. Rey begs the cave to show her parents, and the cave responds with a subtle "It doesn't matter." And when we see her after the throne room sequence we see a new sense of purpose as she saves the Resistance from the TIE fighters on Crait. She is now no longer held back by her own past, and she becomes strong enough to lift the rocks to free them from the base. Our character's only get stronger by struggling. I cheer for that, and I'll be severely disappointed if they go back on it in Episode IX.

6. #NotMyLuke If you didn't like how they treated Luke Skywalker in this movie, I understand. No one wants to see their heroes broken and deconstructed. But saying that Luke wouldn't do that is not the most valid argument. The last time we saw Luke was 30 years ago, people change. You can be biased all you want, I am. But explaining your bias does not make it an objective truth. This whole article is my opinion and should be challenged and possibly debated, just like I'm doing to your opinion. It's subjective, there is no right or wrong. So let's jump into the pivotal moment first, Luke wouldn’t have tried to kill Kylo. In the flashback, Luke only had a moment of doubt, which is completely excusable in the Star Wars version of the Baby Hitler scenario. Luke saw the future, and saw Ben destroying everything he ever held dear. He instinctually thought that he could stop it, then immediately regretted it. In doing that, he pushed Ben over the edge. So could he be saved? Based on everything that everyone tells us in this movie, as well as the failed attempt at redemption by Han Solo, no. He is too far gone. Vader was a tragic villain who only listened to his own son. Ben is a psychopath who is not going to be convinced by Uncle Luke. Even Leia realizes this, and when Rey ignores Luke's advice she is wrong.That trumps any argument for Ben's soul to me. And Luke still doesn't try to kill him. If anything, that is IN character for him. Then he ran, Ben joined The First Order and Luke left to hide in his own shame and failure. He held himself to too high a standard because of his status as a legend, the same standard that we as fans are holding him to, by the way. So when it went south for him it hit him really hard. It broke him. As he learned about all the flaws in the Jedi teachings of old, he thought it was time for the Jedi Order to die, so he hid, cut himself off from The Force, and waited to die. It is heartbreaking, but above all it is human. It also gives us a reason for our favorite hero to learn one final lesson. Failure is the best teacher, and he uses that lesson to give him the strength to move forward and embrace who we all thought he was. That is so much more interesting than if we had another wise old master training a naive young student. To me, it would have been closer to a disservice to the character to make him this infallible wise old Jedi because then he can't be a significant part of the movie without forcing him into it. Not to mention Luke comes in at the end, and completely redeems himself. He becomes a legend and the hero you wanted. So what's the problem? It took him longer to get there than you wanted? That there were struggles along the way? That's what all stories are. If you didn't want that, then I think you wanted Luke Skywalker the plot device, or the deus ex machina, but not Luke Skywalker the character. I'm interested to talk about it though. His projection of himself across the galaxy may not have been your favorite way to show just how powerful Luke had become, but it does show it. It also showed it in a manner that was the best example for the Jedi teachings being for knowledge and defense, which was a fatal flaw for the original Jedi Order. Luke had a truly heroic moment from a place of pacifism, and instills a new sense of hope in the Rebels who are able to escape because of him. It overexerts his body and he dies. I loved it. I cannot imagine any kind of X-Wing battle, lightsaber fight, or other blaze of glory scenario that would have been more respectful and reverent to his character than in the movie. He dies echoing the beginning of his story, in front of a binary sunset, with The Force theme playing, alone, calm, and completely at peace. That's just me though.

7. Why Didn't Holdo Just Tell Poe the Plan Let me ask you a question. Why would Holdo tell Poe, an impulsive, hot headed liability of a soldier, the plan? Sure, Leia likes Poe, but Holdo doesn't have to. Holdo did not answer to Poe and saw no reason to let him or anyone else in on the plan. I've never been in the military, so if I'm wrong let me know, but I'm pretty sure you can't just confront your superior about their orders. Not to mention Holdo's plan was a gamble and playing it close to the chest was obviously the right answer. If the survival of the entire Resistance depends on sneaking away, you're going to make sure that information doesn't go anywhere that you aren't in complete control of. However, I think that argument falls apart whenever Poe takes over the ship. I've heard and made up plenty of arguments for why Holdo doesn't come clean during the mutiny, and while some of them are pretty convincing, I'm not sold on them. I feel like it's worth adding that when Poe takes over the Raddus, Holdo has no reason to think that not coming clean would lead to the destruction of 24 out of 30 transports (I counted). The fact that someone else found out about the plan led to that. Doesn’t that prove her right? Maybe Holdo knew that Leia was awake? These arguments are shaky at best and I know I'm reaching, so I'm gonna chalk this one up to a mark against the movie. If you've heard a convincing argument or think one of my aforementioned ones work for you, that is fine and it works for you. For me it's a plot hole, but certainly not the first one in the history of Star Wars. For example, why did our heroes wait a year before rescuing Han from Jabba's palace? They knew where he was. How did Luke complete his training without going back to Yoda? How did Boba Fett beat The Falcon to Cloud City? Insignificant plot holes are par for the course in Star Wars, therefore it cannot ruin only one of the movies to me.

8. Canto Bight Canto Bight is a little bit of a mess. I will admit that, from a plot standpoint, it has little bearing on the story. The whole sequence is basically a pickup mission. There is some lazy writing, with the convenience of finding a second codebreaker, some bad dialogue from Rose, (We get it, we need to find a Master Codebreaker with a red Plombloom, and get out of here. Stop saying it.) and the infamous parking ticket. Additionally, it is not set up very well in an odd sequence with Maz Kanata who, albeit entertaining, feels very much like a plot device. However, it is absolutely pivotal in Finn's character arc. At the beginning of the movie, Finn tries to run away with the beacon that Rey will follow in order to bring her to safety and stay out of the war. He cares about Rey. He has no attitude toward the war, he just wants out of it. In TFA, he lied his way to Starkiller base just to save Rey. His arc in TLJ is his journey from that person, into being an actual revolutionary and caring about The Resistance. This is an arc that is more subtle than it needs to be, at the fault of the movie. This is my mini-thesis statement for the whole Canto Bight sequence: The Canto Bight sequence cuts out effective character development for pleasing visuals. However, it is not devoid of all quality and depth. Instead of arguing for it, please allow me to instead recontextualize it in the hopes that you will enjoy it more on your next viewing, and then tell you the one change that I think would have made a big difference in the whole sequence. In order to learn that he does not want to stay outside of the war, he travels to a planet where the economy thrives on that very concept. When they first arrive, Finn loves it. It is only when he sees the kinds of people that its inhabitants really are, that he starts to see the first crack in the armor. This point is further expanded on in Benicio Del Toro's character who has the same attitude as Finn, and shares his most interesting scene with Finn on-board the ship on their way back to the fleet. They speak about staying out of the war, war profiteering, and how it is all just a business. This also has an effect on Finn, and he is still wrestling with himself at the time of Del Toro's betrayal. Seeing the kind of people that he was trying to join turns the tide, and he decides to align himself with the Resistance. He sees the evil of The First Order exercising itself on his friends in the fleet, and uses that anger as fuel to battle against them, even attempting to sacrifice himself for it. But He still has much to learn, as Rose makes apparent. I would have rewritten one aspect of this arc. I think Finn should have kept the beacon and taken it to Canto Bight. Then he should have tried to convince Rose to stay there, or at least let him. That would further cement his starting point in this movie. I would have loved to cut out the dumb chase scene for a better look at the inhabitants of Canto Bight and conversations about Finn's decision to desert. Then the next few scenes would be much better contextualized, and make the whole sequence more compelling.

9. Rose The love story was forced, but I think Finn realized that too. I'm going to withhold judgement until Episode IX on that. Other than that, Rose was a great character who helps to craft Finn's character. Rose teaches Finn that saving what you love is more important than fighting what you hate. I think that moment was badly written, but necessary. Rose loses her sister at the beginning of the movie, and it is almost to no avail. So we know from the start that Rose has a problem with the idea of martyrdom. She is about compassion and heroism, not anger and spite. She's a defensive character, shown by her role in The Resistance being not a soldier, but a mechanic. The one positive thing I will say about the fathier chase scene is at the end she puts emphasis on freeing the animals. While Finn is focused on destroying the city, Rose shows him what it is really about, and it sets up her saving him at the end quite nicely.

The last two sections were rife with my own bias and I recognize that. I am not making excuses for or invalidating what I see as legitimate problems with the movie. I am simply explaining why I can enjoy it anyway. If it doesn't work for you, no judgement here. Moving on!

10. Rey is too Strong That's the point, Rey is really strong and it scares the hell out of her. This one can't really be talked about without getting extra nerdy about it so here goes... They establish in this movie many times that The Force is a supernatural power that naturally balances itself out. If you look at the previous movies you will see that it is self-evident. When the Sith come out of hiding and make themselves known, the Chosen One is discovered on Tattooine. When The Empire takes control of the galaxy, Luke and Leia are born. When Luke starts a Jedi Academy, Ben Solo is seduced by Snoke. When The First Order strikes its first major blow against the New Republic, The Force AWAKENS in Rey. The Force is a power that is harnessed by training, but can also implement itself instinctually and automatically. Anakin's podracing skills, for example. When did Luke even get the idea that he could pull his lightsaber out of the snow with The Force? With little-to-no training how did he manage to blow up the Death Star without his targeting computer? How did he survive for even a second against the most feared figure in the galaxy with almost no lightsaber training? Rey fended for herself almost her whole life, she was definitely more capable than Luke was when his adventure started. She is so strong with The Force because Luke went into hiding and cut himself off from it, and there was nothing to balance out the growing evil in the galaxy. And I'm not making this up to win an argument. Snoke says "Darkness rises, and Light to meet it. I warned my apprentice that as he grew stronger his equal in the light would become apparent." that quote may not be verbatim, but my point still stands. Luke says it too, "powerful light, powerful darkness," You don't have to like it, that is up to you. It does make sense though, they told you repeatedly. And they not only explained it, but they explained it in a way that expands the lore of The Force, and fits in rather nicely with the rest of saga.

11. Leia The scene where General Leia saves herself in the vacuum of space is a place where we are going to be able to find some more common ground. I think it looks a little ridiculous and I can totally understand why that would ruin it for a large number of people. However, I am able to look past it fnd see it for all the amazing things that it is. First, it is a great character moment for Princess Leia who has the same, if not more potential than Luke. Secondly, it is an appropriate use of fan service and gave us something we've been wanting to see since we found out she is also strong with The Force. Lastly, to see Carrie Fisher's final performance have a moment where she uses The Force to save herself from certain death can only be good. For me, it is pitting all that against the fact that it looks weird, and I think it's no contest. If you disagree with me that is fine and I have no argument against it, save for the points I just made. For those of you arguing about the logistics of The Force and how she could do it without training, or how she can fly, or survive in space. The Force has precedent for being instinctual and in a life or death situation it can take the wheel to some extent. In a weightless enviroment it would not take very much ability to pull yourself through it. And Star Wars has always played fast and loose with space physics anyway. There is precedent in the prequels and OT of surviving in space for a limited amount of time. It is not some new sacrilege unique to The Last Jedi.

12. Phasma Not A lot to say on this one. I don't think the problem was that she was underused or misused as much as she was over-hyped(Refer to 2. Marketing). In the context of the films it's a non-issue to me. J.J introduced a lot of characters in The Force Awakens, and I am glad that Rian Johnson focused on the important ones. Imagine the pacing issues that would come with giving every new character a great moment, character arc, or badass death. At least Phasma got to kick Finn's ass before she died. Yes, she kicked Finn's ass. Finn got a lucky shot when she wasn't looking. Up until that it was a very one-sided fight. She did more than Boba Fett ever did and her death wasn't framed by an accident, a whiny scream, and a burp. There's only so much time in a movie and spreading it too thin would hurt every single storyline. She was misused in TFA though.

Conclusion Personally, after 6 viewings I can say that I put The Last Jedi behind Empire and maybe A New Hope. So it's 2nd or 3rd. There is nothing in this movie that is more offensive than Jar Jar Binks, Leia's sporadic British accent, Luke mourning his only family for about 5 minutes, Ewoks taking on the Imperial Army, either of the musical numbers in Jabba's Palace (The old one is way better, but I hate them both), whiny Anakin, whiny Luke, Luke's idiotic plan in Jabba's Palace, the nauseating writing of Anakin and Padme's love story, the cringeworthy shot of Luke swinging at air while Vader throws things at him in Empire, and I can go on. I have no problem saying that The Last Jedi is better than the messy Return of the Jedi, the awkward prequels, the overly familiar but still great Force Awakens, and the very messy Rogue One. I'm not trying to bash all of Star Wars to spite the haters, I'm trying to plead with them to realize that we as fans don't love Star Wars because they are technically perfect movies. They aren't. I can probably nitpick almost every single one to the same extent that I'm seeing The Last Jedi being torn apart in the garbage fire that is Youtube comment sections. We love them for the characters, the action, the fantasy, and so many more reasons. I don't have a problem with you if you didn't like the movie, but it does bother me greatly when I see people ignoring the problems in the movies they like and then all of a sudden not tolerating them in this one. If you want to compare The Last Jedi to other Star Wars movies, then compare it to to the actual Star Wars movies and not the perfect versions that you have in your head. There is no such thing as a perfect movie, and The Last Jedi doesn't break that streak. But it's not binary, just because Rian Johnson's Star Wars movie wasn't perfect doesn't make it an absolute atrocity. I think the characters, the stellar action sequences, some all-time great Star Wars moments, the overall story, the fact that it takes Star Wars someplace new, the multi-layered villain, the score, the cinematography, and the treatment of some of our favorite characters far outweigh any problems that I just expounded upon. And I think the same case applies to every Star Wars movie.

[daughter-of-water]

Why Rey is a Mary Sue and Luke Skywalker is Not

Sorry it took so long to respond to this Anon. I really wanted to take my time to unpack all this. First of all, I will concede that it is possible that Rey might meet Literature Devil’s criteria of a Mary Sue –a character to which the universe and plot bends in TROS as in that movie we apparently have such scenes as Kylo Ren against his established characterization attempting to run Rey over with his TIE fighter for no real reason other  than to show how awesome she is when she flips over it. This is indicative of a Mary Sue moment according to his definition of it. However, the incidents he uses to make his argument do not come from TROS. The examples he cites comes mainly from TFA and are grounded in a flawed supposition that the plot is meant to adhere to Campbell’s Hero’s Journey cycle as Luke’s did and his own faulty observations.

He expands upon his definition of Mary Sue by describing it as a situation when a rookie is able to defeat a veteran for no discernible reason then “he’s just awesome” then refuses to acknowledge the premise that Rey defeated Kylo Ren because Kylo was at his lowest point at the time– he was emotional compromised after killing his father and running out of steam after suffering two injuries, one of which was pretty major. In Literature Devil’s mind this should be impossible for Rey to accomplish and proof of her Mary Sue universe bending powers™ . He doesn’t take into account that stories reflect life rather than adhere to a strict skill stat score. A veteran can lose to someone less experienced if they underestimate their opponent or something emerges that interferes with their ability to perform. 

But the real reason that Rey shouldn’t be allowed to defeat Kylo Ren so early in the game in Literature Devil’s mind is because it goes against the Hero’s Journey cycle. The sole basis he has for the supposition that the sequel trilogy will following this formula in it’s storytelling is the similarities that can be found between ‘The Force Awakens’ and a ‘A New Hope’. He doesn’t once consider that this is intentionally put there to set up what will be a subversion of the Hero’s Journey in many ways and instead, anticipates a repeat of Luke’s story only this time Luke’s a girl. If he had actually been paying attention to Reylo meta rather than just condemning it as “whataboutism” or obfuscation, he’d learn that Rey’s journey isn’t following the Hero’s Journey cycle in the first place and is actually following the Heroine Journey cycle, a formula designed by a student of Campbell’s. In the Heroine’s Journey cycle the heroine does achieve early material success than the hero because it’s illusionary. Her journey is psychologically driven and about reconciling two ways of looking at the world rather than the surmounting of challenges posed by a rival. It’s not about the student becoming the master. It’s about figuring out what success means and what someone really wants in life. If one has watched Avatar the Last Airbender as Literature Devil has, this cycle should already be familiar to them. The heroine’s journey formula is used to formulate Zuko’s character arc.

Literature Devil begins his argument by first going over the skills that both Luke and Rey are supposed to have garnered as part of their upbringing and profession and while he exposes what is the fatal flaw of this trilogy, he also exposes the quality of his own observational skills. The greatest flaw of this trilogy is the fact that Disney withheld crucial information that was key to understanding the characters and their backstories from being developed onscreen and left it for visual dictionaries, comics, and novelizations to tell. Only the most diehard of fans read these which leads to many erroneous assumptions such as the one Literature Devil makes that Rey survived on Jakku entirely on her own and had zero mentors. In actuality, the novelizations inform us that she was sold to Unkar Plutt as a child and shadowed other scavengers employed by him to learn the trade and how to defend herself. She was driven to learn how to read the schematics of ships because Unkar doles out more portions for parts that were still working as opposed to merely on the basis of the value of the material they were made from. The reason she knows about the compressor that Unkar Plutt put on the Millennium Falcon is because she worked as a mechanic for him. Unfortunately the Force Awakens doesn’t give us enough dialogue between them to establish that relationship on screen. His hand holding onto her arm and admonishing her to be quiet in her flashback is the only indication he owns her as a slave.

It isn’t just Rey that suffers from this problem but really all the new characters in the trilogy but Literature Devil shows the quality of his observation skills and/or biases when he criticizes the basic setup of her character–the emphasis on how alone she is and how much she wants to be reunited with her parents. For some reason, he really dislikes this element of her backstory and feels the narrative needs to tell him what Rey’s parents did to deserve her devotion as if wanting someone to rescue you from the hell that is Jakku and give you the home and a sense of belonging isn’t enough. Because of this, he completely misses key moments that would tell him why Rey is moved to join the Resistance and help BB-8. He fails to note that yes, while she doesn’t interact with the wilted flower or the Resistance Doll seen in her AT-AT, she does put on a Rebel Alliance helmet as she eats her dinner. The combination of the helmet and the doll suggests a childlike adoration for the Rebels and the heroes of the last war and we do see this play out with how excited she is to hear the stories of the Jedi being real. Literature Devil also asserts the narrative suffers from a lack of any moment that would endear BB-8 to Rey and cause her to shift from reluctant helper to stalwart attack dog when in fact there was such a moment when they arrive at Niima Outpost. BB-8 reveals to Rey that he is waiting for someone to return to him. BB-8 is just like her and by helping to reunite him with his family, she is helping someone achieve something she cannot. She attacks Finn under the belief that Finn stole Poe’s jacket and may have done something to him that led to BB-8′s abandonment. Her actions are projection of her own issues.

Rey’s motivation isn’t just that she is kind as Literature Devil supposes. The strongest connections she makes are with characters who can act as parental substitutes such as Han and Leia or characters who have been abandoned and left behind like her such as BB-8 and Ben Solo. It plays an integral part of the story and Literature Devil’s proposed changes to her story of having her wait for a Jedi master as much as it would assuage the criticism of her abilities in the Force would at the same time undermine the entire conceit of her character and what is really the only consistently decent thing in this trilogy-her relationship with Kylo Ren. Literature Devil assumes Kylo Ren’s role in the story is the same as Vader’s to Luke–a rival that Rey must hone her combat skills against but he complete ignores how different Kylo Ren’s narrative is from Vader’s. Kylo Ren from the onset is presented to us not as a fearsome machine man but as the lost prodigal son hiding behind a mask whose salvation is made an objective of the story in a major way. The challenge Kylo presents for Rey isn’t physical so much as emotional and yes, romantic even. Their relationship is more akin to Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy than it is Luke’s and Vader’s. Rey’s siphoning of Kylo’s abilities or his defeat at her hands does not come as a result of her just being so awesome. They serve to highlight the conflicted nature of Kylo’s character and his longing for the same sense of belonging and end to isolation that Rey seeks. 

I could go on more about the flaws in Literature Devil’s argument but this is already long enough. In short, I do not think Rey is a Mary Sue as far as TFA and TLJ are concerned. The fact that her journey doesn’t conform to Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and that you’re not getting your combat training montage with a wizened mentor is because her journey isn’t following that formula in the first place. Nevertheless, I do agree with Literature Devil in the sense that I do think Rey is a victim of bad writing just like all the new characters are. The things included in the outside materials should have been in the damn movies.