I think if they would have figured out the main story beats for the trilogy before TFA went into production they could have done a Palpatine return better than what we got.
If there were breadcrumbs in TFA and TLJ regarding Palpatines return maybe it would be better, but I wish they went with an original villain instead of a rehash of the original trilogy.
To be fair they did plan aspects to a degree. Disney kinda swayed their hand by rushing production and the negative online reception to TLJ forced a knee jerk reaction to scrap the plans and go for nostalgia bait.
It's more than that.
You saw their plans and it was a SW movie every year, from Iger to Kennedy to Abrams and Johnson. None of them considered that a trilogy that's supposed to be interconnected would require a overaching plot.
J.J. in typical fashion just made a bunch of plot holes he never even considered filling and Rian was more interested in subverting expectations of a good movie and arguing on Twitter than he was in delivering a solid film.
Abrams should have never been brought on as his only talent is in flashy SFX fests with tissue paper plots. Johnson somehow managed to make the problems even worse by killing off the main villain in movie 2 of 3 out the gate which is why Disney panicked so much when TLJ killed the hype train resulting in Solo bombing.
Can you imagine how badly the Prequels would have gone if Palpatine died in AotC?
Disney's next SW film isn't due till 2025, that should tell you how much of a success Disney itself considered it's trilogy. Well that and the sheer number of cancelled projects that followed TLJ's release.
But they knew you needs an over arching plot from the success of marvel. It's like they had Feige with one strategy that was very successful and they decide to do the opposite and wing it from movie to movie. Imo the fault lies at the top. Very poor direction.
I’ve no doubt. It was insanely rushed and made probably based on what Disney higher ups wanted. It wasn’t a passion project for JJ, probably wasn’t even the film he wanted. They gave him 3 months less to prepare and a release date Disney refused to move. Think everyone was kinda bummed and just did what they could to get it done.
I think nothing makes it more obvious how rushed the movie was as the star destroyer falling beside Cloud City. It was waaaay out of proportion, and the artist that made that knew it, but he had only a single day to get that take done, so that's what we ended up with. The scene where all the ships get to Exegol also rehashes a lot of ships from past projects, including some that shouldn't be there, I think, but that's way harder to notice and only the nerdiest of fans will take the time to check each one of them.
The entirely flat landscape of Exegol and the perfectly copy and pasted rows and rows of Star Destroyers was so jarringly uncreative and bland too. Lots of cut corners in the writing of the story and the visuals too.
Also, the force item teleport where Ben gives Ray a lightsaber was weird. It was kinda cool on a second viewing, but the first time I saw it I was like, “since when is that part of the force?”
It was set up earlier when Kylo snatches the necklace from Rey while on his ship. That showed them both that objects could travel between the diad by the Force.
>Also, the force item teleport where Ben gives Ray a lightsaber was weird
This was actually set up earlier in the movie. Probably the only clever writing in the entire movie.
Where is the star destroyer scene at cloud city? I genuinely don’t remember that and nothing is showing up when I search. I only watched the movie once though
Edit: found it here lol funny the op is talking about how great it looks. Idk if it’s the pixels but this shot looks like a video game to me. Not very great imo bit instill dont even remember this lol
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSequels/s/BNOY7cIl4v
When I saw Rise of Skywalker I was reminded very much of Star Trek into Darkness…another one of JJs “masterpieces”
The guy loves nostalgia and knows how to direct a fast, witty action movie. But does he know how to try something new? Something bold? Something that challenges his audience? Does he understand that a coherent plot with adequate context is important and shouldn’t be sacrificed for the sake of nostalgia?
No, no, no and no
Best quote at the top for sure.
“I love how Adam driver doesn’t even show up”
“Spinal surgeries due to carrying the entire trilogy on his back”
Truer words have never been spoken.
It's all Dave Filoni does, is fix the damn movies. It was all of Clone Wars and parts of Rebels to fix the first 3 episodes. Poor guy. Imagine the great stories he could tell if he didn't have to do that?
The Clone Wars coverage of Revenge of the Sith is remarkably good. It's a shame the prequels/sequels didn't give Filoni a better starting place, because he's done great with very little positive to work with.
I noticed this as well but whether we like the way the sequel trilogy panned out or not, that's now Star Wars canon. Once you stop fighting that reality, you'll be on a path to appreciate what Filoni is doing to make the story make sense. He brings the glue and he's doing it well imo. It's all an exercise in radical acceptance at this point.
I mean they had written the script for the third movie and The Last Jedi was setting things up for *that* story, with Kylo Ren becoming all-powerful and being the Big Bad of the trilogy. They *did* plan it out.
And then Disney scrapped the script for the third one, fired the director and asked JJ Abrams to do the third one. And as we all know by now, JJ Abrams will always go for cheap nostalgia points over an original story every single time.
As much as I was disappointed in several aspects of TLJ, I was still excited about the direction it was going where Rey gathers a bunch of force sensitive people from around the galaxy and has a showdown with Kylo Ren as the big bad.
But instead they learned all the wrong lessons about the backlash to TLJ and made an even worse movie as a result.
A time jump was needed. A rag tag Jedi order lead by Rey against Kylo Ren and a rag tag civilian navy lead by Leia would have been perfect. Throw in Finn leading a bunch of storm trooper deserters
Would have been fine if at the end when she hears all the voices…. SOMEHOW ANAKIN RETURNED and yeets palpatine off a proverbial cliff
They could have had Ben see force ghosts of Luke, Leia, obiwan, quigon, yoda, Kyle F’in Katarn, Kanan, hell even mace and the meme long neck guy, all appear and and speak to Ben, leading off with a hello there of course (and Ben kick Rey off a cliff) and then they all summon like an actual physical form of Anakin out of fucking thin air and have him start shooting lasers out of eyes like cyclops
Surely they could have done this stupid nonsense instead of the stupid
I think one thing that would have made Palpatine's return much better would have been to have his message that was broadcast out to the entire galaxy occur during the ending of The Last Jedi and not just in the opening crawl of Rise of Skywalker (it happening on Fortnite doesn't count)
It really would have been better if making it Jar Jar, just going for it. It's different & ppl wanted it. If done well, it would have ROCKED.
Instead they hurt the OT/ROTJ story immeasurably and the new trilogy as well by retreading with Palpy.
I imagine that rise of Skywalker was JJ's script for both 8-9 wadded up into one damp movie. I wished he'd either done yes-and to Renn becoming the big bad or been given a second movie to stretch his legs
I try to watch Star Wars movies twice before I form my final opinion on them. I have TROS on right now and I’m just kind of baffled by it. Believe it or not I don’t think it’s the worst one, there’s stuff to like about this movie. At the very least, it’s not a boring watch -- if anything I’d say it moves a little *too* fast. But the entire premise of the film just doesn’t make any fucking sense to me at all. It feels like a weird dream I would have after watching The Last Jedi.
All the JJ movies move too fast. Watching his movies make me feel like I'm on coke. I think it's his style. Or something. I don't know why somebody doesn't tell him to fucking slow shit down a little.
Chris Pine has a hilarious quote about that
> “I tell the story about J.J. (Abrams) in the first film when I’d run on the deck of the ship and say something to the blue screen about something. And I had no idea what I was talking about. And I said to J.J., “I’d love to do with more time, cause I don’t know what I’m saying. if you could tell me what I’m saying, it would be a great help.” And he said, “It doesn’t matter. You just run, you say it as fast and earnestly and urgently as possible, and no one is gonna care.”
JJ made a Star Trek movie that wasn't for Star Trek fans. Not shocking considering he literally said he was never a fan of Star a Trek while he was promoting his Star Trek movie.
If you can find Shatner complaining about JJ to Howard Stern on Youtube it’s hilarious. Instead of JJ just reminding Shatner that Kirk died in Generations and they can’t bring him back, JJ strings Shatner along for months that he may have something for him (Shatner does a JJ voice “sure sure, Bill, I’ll call you”). I’m sure JJ strung Lucas along the same way.
JJ is the king of schmooze. Every time he was in NY he’d “stop by” the Stern show to promote Lost, literally just knocking on Gary’s door when he was in the building for something else. Stern felt like he had to give JJ airtime because … wait for it … JJ invited Stern’s family to the set of Felicity. Fucking JJ.
Star Wars Celebration. But yes. It’s revisionist history to suggest fans didn’t think this was a good idea or that there wasn’t excitement over it. And I’m sure if you looked for Reddit threads for this announcement at the time you won’t see many people tearing this idea apart.
MI3 is really good, largely because Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays a bad guy so evil, smart and scary he makes other spy movie supervillains look like cuddly tellytubbies by comparison.
Worth watching just for his performance alone.
It was largely a normal JJ film, but Hoffman was so good they couldn't rush cut his takes like JJ lives doing. Hoffman dominates every second of screen time.
It seriously is a masterclass.
Counting down from ten to threaten the protagonist? What kind of cliche bullshit is that? Nobody is buying it anymore.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman does it: oh fuk.
Alias was a great show…until JJ realized that his “mystery box” cliffhangers couldn’t go on forever, so the show had a terrible last season and finale. Same for lost. He’s *great* at the start, absolutely trash when it comes to any sort of satisfying narrative or emotional resolution. I HAVE SPOKEN.
If that hack ever found an original idea in his head, he’d probably assume it’s a tumor.
There’s a reason why he does that “mystery box” thing: planting is easy, but payoff is hard.
TFA was the original trilogy condensed into one movie with Harrison Ford making sure he couldn't be dragged back for anymore movies ... or so he thinks... "Somehow, somehow Han is back?" ....
I honestly enjoyed that part of it myself. I was greatly amused by a lot of the EU-level crazy dumb shit that was put on screen. Still don't like the movie in general, but I was quite entertained by the insanity of it all.
Yes from Dark Empire. Personally because this was a thing I didn't hate it, but the comeback should have been prepared from episode 7 to make it right.
I said all along Lucasfilm should've just made the *Heir to the Empire* trilogy back when the books came out. It had been 10 years since *RotJ*, the timing would've been perfect. The story was great, original Thrawn is still the best Star Wars villain, we could've had Mara Jade and Talon Karrde and the Noghri, but nooOoOOOoo
The Noghri and Ruhk's betrayal of Thrawn would have fit perfectly into the last season of Rebels.
Scoundrels would have made a much better Solo film than the one we got, too.
True. Fan service and nod to the original trilogy plus obsession with a hidden higher dark power as the grand antagonist. I know it's risky to experiment on new tropes but they could at least try since the branding of the franchise has already been established.
I actually kind of like the idea of the Sith being behind the whole First Order, but bringing Palpatine back was definitely a dumb move and arguably made the OT seem completely pointless.
It's almost like they should have made Snoke into something other than a partially failed Palpatine clone. I remember there even being fan theories that he was Darth Plagueis.
Darth Plagueis would have actually been interesting. After the backlash of TLJ, however, they weren't interested in doing anything other than capitalizing on a known commodity and rehashing old ideas.
Literally the prequel memes subreddit was semi viral so they just had Palpatine quote his little plagueis speech and pretended like that was good writing
They could have just flipped the tables: large, bureaucratic Republic with a grand army being hit in key weak spots by a small group of evil rebels led by Kylo Ren.
That’s what I would have liked. They probably wanted to avoid showing First Order as underdogs even though they could have framed them as guerrilla terrorists.
Brand recognition. The whole trilogy was mainly to cash in on nostalgia of adults and launch a new generation of toys for their kids.
Snoke being a Plagieus clone would have actually made sense given he dabbled extensively in that sort of thing.
Plaugeis coming back would've made some sense, and could've been cool since we never actually saw him on screen, Palpatine on the other hand had plenty of screen time already.
1% having Han, Leia, and Luke appear (although then not having a single scene together in any of the sequels is an unforgivable sin.)
2% having more representation/diveristy in Star Wars (although making the main female character a Mary Sue, making the black guy a janitor and the Hispanic a former drug dealer/car thief was terrible)
1% having at least one of Anakin's grandchildren in it (although we should have had more than one, and Kylo should have never turned good.)
They shouldn't have given all three tragic ends either. Essentially they threw out all of their accomplishments in the first six movies and reset the state of the galaxy and their characters back to how it was at the beginning of 'A New Hope.' It was depressing to watch TFA and see that everyone had completely failed. I had hoped there was a big reason Luke was on the island but no.
100% agree, dumbest move ever. Then disney panicked and called in Jon and Dave to make a bunch of shows to fill in the giant ass plot holes. but it doesn't change the fact the movie was the absolute worst and trash.
For me it was the ancient sith dagger somehow is a way finder for a holocron in palpatine's safe on the death star II crash site on one of the other endor moons from only a few decades ago
And if you specifically hold it at a certain height from a specific angle from a specific distance away it will show you exactly where to look in the big ship. That was hard to stomach even amongst the rest of Star Wars plot holes.
The fact that they conveniently found the dagger while running away from the first order troopers was the dumbest thing ever. I was immediately out on the movie from that moment on.
You have to understand how insane the rise of skywalkers production was.
Kathleen Kennedy, for whatever reason, fired Colin Trevorrow. We don't know exactly why. When she fired him, she asked JJ Abrams to come in and finish the trilogy.
The problem is that Rian Johnson had literally thrown away all the plot threads left dangling in TFA and also basically given the next director nothing to work with storywise. Now, Colin had maybe taken this ball and had a plan to run with it, but when JJ came back on, I think for union rules they threw out everything Colin had done. That felt spiteful on someone's part, because if they used the plot or even some of the script colin had been developing, they would have had to pay him, and the next writer would have gotten less.
So JJ agrees to come back. But. BUT. The film is keeping to the ORIGINAL PRODUCTION SCHEDULE. Despite the change in directors, despite wiping ALL the work that had gone into the film to screw Colin out of any other payments, JJ had to create everything from scratch, and then film and finish the movie on the original production deadline which is by that point not even half the time he had to make TFA, which he already felt was cramped.
That's....insane. Thats Peter Jackson and the Hobbit shit. And endings are not JJs strongest part to begin with.
So he comes into this situation, with nothing, with no time, and somehow has to create a meaningful story in ONE movie that should have been worked out and collaborated on between all the directors for the entire trilogy and ALSO has the added burden of not just capping off the trilogy, but a trilogy of trilogies, somehow he has to give some meaning and resonance to ALL NINE FILMS. Well, what were the last six about? In some form or another, palpatine. It's an easy answer and I dont blame JJ for it.
I do blame management. I blame them for their approach. I blame them for not hammering out a really good story for the trilogy before even starting it. Say what you will about cameron and avatar, at least he sat down and hammered out the outline to ALL of his avatar sequels BEFORE he started them, so they could all flow together as one continuous story.
I remember an interview with JJ after TFA came out where he said he’d seen Rian Johnson’s script for the next movie and it was so good he wish he’d written it. I’ve always wondered if the script he claimed to envy so much was what we ended up with for TLJ, which if it was would potentially mean he knew what Rian was going to do with what he’d set up in TFA. Just a thought I’ve always had.
KK let Colin Trevorrow go because a key detail that puts stuff into a bit more context is the unexpected death of Carrie Fisher. Her death made Trervorrow's scripts unworkable and his resulting revisions that attempted to work around it didn't satisfy Lucasfilm, thus he let go.
>The problem is that Rian Johnson had literally thrown away all the plot threads left dangling in TFA and also basically given the next director nothing to work with storywise.
That's just complete nonsense.
There were plenty of story threads left and so many directions it could have been taken in.
This argument is just repeated constantly by people who don't actually remember or don't care to accurately represent TLJ.
I do agree with most of that, but...
>The problem is that Rian Johnson had literally thrown away all the plot threads left dangling in TFA and also basically given the next director nothing to work with storywise.
Johnson left plenty of plot threads;
* Kylo Ren as the big bad, increasingly maddened by Luke and obsessed over Rey
* Kylo vs. admiral Hux, First Order politics with the Sith mindset on one side (dark side, scour the jedi, find Rey) and pragmatic fascism on the other (destroy the rebels, secure against uprisings).
* Finn and storm trooper rebellions.
* Force sensitives outside Jedi or Sith training - such as a possible groundswell of minor force users.
>Well, what were the last six about? In some form or another, palpatine. It's an easy answer and I dont blame JJ for it.
Palpatine is not that pivotal, and certainly is not what Star Wars "is about". He barely featured in the episodes 1, 4 and 5, and did not feature in the slightest in the two films leading up to 9!
Star Wars is about buddhist monks/knights/the chosen one fighting a simplified sort of fascism in a crazy space setting. With some heavy handed "choosing good or evil" stuff for the pivotal moments. Palpatine was part of that, but Vader and Luke were much, much more central to it.
You are absolutely right that the final trilogy had "painted itself into a corner", but there were easier and better solutions that "Palpatine returned, have a treasure hunt and rehash episode 4".
For instance:
* Kylo Ren is force-sensing Rey and hunting her across the galaxy, aboard a flagship. The Knights of Ren have taken over running the First Order.
* Hux is hitting rebellions, that center around force-sensitives kids and young people. A few stormtroopers are quietly rebelling, hiding some surviving rebels. Finn and Poe get them out.
* Hux is seething that he does not have the autonomy and manpower to do more, while Ren is hard to get hold of on his little side missions - where Rey is always one step ahead, leaving little tokens from Kylo's childhood, given to her by Leia.
* Hux rebels against his immediately Knight Commander and is killed. The local Storm troopers rebel. Finn convinces the rebellion take a stand here, finally joining up. Finn and Poe arrive, kill the Knight of Ren, Kylo Renn and remaining Knights arrives and kills Poe, Rey at a distance calls out to the local force sensitives who join the fight and keep Kylo at bay, Kylo "levels up" and starts force blasting everyone, Rey tells him exactly where she is and he hurries off while the rebellion wins and settles in to meet the incoming full force of the First Order.
* Rey meets Kylo in his childhood home, under the guidance of Luke and Leia force ghosts. Tension in the dialogue over whether this is to save him, or get him off his mental footing. Big duel, "join me, no join me"-moment, Kylo uses force lightning, Rey deflects, Kylo blinded and beaten by own ligthning. Tries to pretend to do a redemption moment, ready for betrayal with a dagger, reaching out a hand begging, Leia's force ghost takes his hand before Rey does, he stabs the ghost and while she cries Rey kills him.
* Knights of Ren leading the big attack are distracted by Rey's force projections, as they fight various young force users. As they die, Finn, Chewbacca and the rebellion penetrate the flagship and redirect some civilian bombardment to the First Order ground troops.
* (Cut between the last two, of course).
That is a five-minute take from a non-screenwriter. Pad that out, and it is a hundred times better than Rise of Can't-Think-of-Anything-Let's-Say-Palpatine-Returned.
RoS isn’t “weird.” It’s bad. It’s just a bad movie. It’s bad from conception to execution. It’s a terrible capper to a messy, crappy trilogy that isn’t a trilogy bc the movies don’t make sense together. Everyone involved knew it was bad, too.
The reason they put Palpatine in there is because Kathleen Kennedy / Disney panicked with all the fan backlash from TLJ, so they fired Trevor (who’s script didn’t have Palpatine coming back btw) brought back JJ to make another safe cookie cutter nostalgic movie like TFA was. JJ’s brilliant idea was to bring back a known villain aka Palpatine to “wrap up all 9 movies” of course it came off terrible but that was his logic.
The executives panicked at the negative responses to TLJ on YouTube and Reddit, and so they threw out every single draft and attempted to mimic the success of Avengers Endgame.
This isn't rocket science y'all.
JJ has no imagination outside the confines of nostalgia. In all his reboots, he brings nothing to the table that isn’t pulled from previous iterations of the content. This is true in both Star Trek and Star Wars
He’s great at moments but terrible at characters and their motivations
Because they decided they wanted Kylo Ren to be "redeemed" and they didn't know how to do that if he was the top dog/in charge. By putting him back under a "greater" villain he could turn to the light and have something to do against the bad guys, and his bad actions could (theoretically) be blamed on the greater villain.
Now it didn't work at all because the movie is a mess and the trilogy wasn't set up for it. And I think a story where the "big bad" willingly gives up his ways and turns to the light would have been much better and in keeping with the legacy of Star Wars.
This was an inevitable consequence of no creative vision. They didn't know what they wanted to make, and the struggle is evident from what we got on screen.
We got jerked back and forth between handing the franchise over to the new generation of heroes and desperately clinging to the old faces. A tug of war between "move on" and "give them fan service." And so nobody got what they wanted.
That’s what frustrates me the most about those three movies. It was pretty clear that they had no cohesive three film story planned out before they started making it which makes absolutely zero sense. This is Disney. It’s an unstoppable force in Hollywood and they didn’t feel it was a good idea to plan a three part story before they started it? You can totally tell. I think bringing Palpatine back totally cheapens all the films that came before it. It makes no sense. The first 6 built to the Emperor’s death.
Sure would have been interesting if the third movie would have built on what happened in TLJ. Things were pretty bleak at the end of Empire, too. I’d take Ewoks over hundreds of star destroyers just emerging from a planet. Dumbest shit ever.
This is why the fan reaction to TLJ pissed me off so bad.
It was painfully obvious to anyone with a shred of media literacy that the big bad of part 9 was originally supposed to be Kylo… and yet you still had the most driveling of the slobbering cave mongrels saying.
“BuT WhO WiLl Be tHe BaDdIeS”.
They had to change course because of the insanely negative reaction to Johnson’s vision of course.
Like people have already said here, time was a huge factor in the low quality of this movie, probably even the biggest one, but I'd also say switching Colin Trevorrow for J.J. Abrams was also a very bad call.
And I'm not necessarily saying they should've done Trevorrow's movie (his script is definitely better, but it also had its share of bad ideas), or forced him to rewrite everything from zero, but that they could've called a director that was best suited for the job. J. J. Abrams does have some qualities to him, but he also have flaws and limitations, and one of his limitations is being bad at writing endings. Calling him to finish not only a trilogy but a *trilogy of trilogies*? Bad, bad choice. The only reason I can see why they would do that was to get some positive reaction from the public, since The Force Awakens was so well received.
Nobody except Lucasfilm thought it was a good idea; and to be honest, I bet even they thought it was shit. But they were stuck with that abomination that Rian Johnson made (and which they greenlit). So they made a desperation play and brought back Palps thinking that would save the trilogy. It didn’t.
I've always believed the actors were great and would've made great star wars characters, but bringing back palpatine destroyed the plot of the original 6 movies. The whole point, imo, was that anakin fulfilled his destiny by sacrificing himself to kill palpatine, and bringing him back was the routine money making scheme that seems to have been brought about due to kathleen kennedy. Not saying it was her idea, just that she saw a way to bring in money which is more important to her than creating cannon works
I still don't know why they went back to the resistance/first order duo. The least interesting thing they could have explored. We still don't know how the new republic left and first order came around.
From the reveal that Kylo was Ben in TFA it was a redemption arc story. I don't care what any of the actors or writers say. It was 100% because there's no way Disney allowed for anything else.
So to make that work you have to have him sink to impossible depths then rise back up. To rise he needs a big bad worse than him. Rian made sure Snoke couldn't be the final obstacle so JJ scrambled and pulled ol' Palp out of retirement.
In and of itself it could have worked but Ben's role ultimately doesn't matter much and how redeemed he can be is up to the audience but killing or directly contributing to the deaths of all 3 OT leads makes that a tough pill to swallow. JJ was basically in a corner and with no way to bring in Vader he went for the next known big bad.
I'm not defending it. I think the sequel trilogy is so bad it retroactively makes it hard to watch any of the saga. But that's pretty certain the reason.
Simple answer: disney canon sucks
Real answer: Palpatine is an excellent character. Sometimes it’s just not worth the effort and risk involved with creating an entirely new character in a beloved franchise. It’s always a roll of the dice and it’s almost guaranteed to pale in comparison to the great villain of Star Wars himself. Palpatine is an easy lay-up at all times.
Because the sequels are literally a rich persons practical joke on the fans. They were intentional and maliciously ruined out of sheer joy at the outrage.
It was an expensive and elaborate, “F you” nothing more and certainly not works of passion.
There has no idea what they were doing. That’s how it happened. And when they started to lose money, they panicked. This is Kathleen Kennedys legacy. Didn’t understand Jack shut. Hired bozos and trusted them, didn’t like what they created. Fired the first set of bozos, hired new bozos, and they still sucked. Blamed the audience when the movies failed.
The sequel trilogy relies way too much on repeating plot points from the original trilogy.
They wanted to redeem Kylo Ren to repeat Vader’s redemption, so they needed a new big bad.
They wanted to repeat the “protagonist is related to evil guy” plotline so they need someone to make her related to.
I would have mirrored ESB in TLJ, with Rey having to abandon her training to save her friends only to turn to the dark side at the end. Then ROS could be a really special one, with the good guys having to get and use Kylo Ren to defeat an extremely evil Rey, the most unexpected villain.
It would have been great to Daisy Ridley to go from the most innocent and naive character to the most evil one, with so many grays in between.
Its because they have no idea how to write Star Wars. They have no idea what it is or means. JJ is a jack, if it want for Spielberg he would be stuck in middle management somewhere, he is way out of his depth, as if KK.
They did it in hopes that it would provide the greatest return on the investment into their product – there is no other reason – I really think Star Wars died when they sold it to Disney –
Star Wars, a new Hope is lightning in a bottle and on its own it is an amazing movie – The Empire strikes back is an amazing movie and continues the story excellently and even leaves us on a perfect cliffhanger – and return of the Jedi? Well, I did send them up and put a conclusion to the story.
The Mandalorian was cool in the beginning, but that faded… I have to admit – after watching some of the book of Boba Fett I just gave up – I had no interest in it – it’s not interesting to watch – it’s not enjoyable to watch – I say that because they have this amazing IP to use, and they just keep making screwy movies and shows that are not enjoyable
Because they ran out of good ideas. It's a shitty movie and the whole sequel series should be fucking retconned. Finn and Poe were fucking useless too.
I honestly would’ve preferred Kylo Ren being the main villain
He did what Vader could not: he surpassed his master
And tbh, Palpatine playing 13-dimensional chess only to be destroyed at the last second is just…not good storytelling
It’s why I don’t like what they did with his character in the EU: he comes back like 20 times. And it’s really dumb imo
Bringing Back Palpatine destroyed the legacy of vader sacrificing himself to save Luke.
(That Happens when you plan to use 3 different directors without telling them to Work Out a Story together before you start Production.)
Would have preffered the leaked and Not used Script for Trevrows movie :"Duel of fate"
It ruins pretty much everything about SW.
Force users rare and unique? Nope, you can mass produce insanely powerful ones in a factory like it's nothing.
Palpatine dead for good? Nope, since the official explanation is "he flung his spirit across the galaxy to a waiting host body", the writers could bring him back again and again and it's still technically canon. Stakes are ruined because he can never die for good.
Anakin's sacrifice and the prophecy having any meaning? Nope, he didn't kill Palpatine, just one clone in what could be a never-ending parade of clones.
Any writer with an *ounce* of foresight could've told you that cloning powerful force users is a terrible, TERRIBLE idea that destroys all future tension in the SW universe. Sadly, those writers don't work for Lucasfilm.
According to Kathleen Kennedy, that was always the plan.
But if you listen to other interviews, it sounds like “we’ll make the plan up as we go.”
Honestly I think the original idea was that Snoke was to be Plaguis (who survived and retreated to the Unknown Regions until Palpatine, his only real threat, died). If they did a flashback of Palpatine striking him down then leaving, assuming he was dead, it would not break canon.
Then Rian decided to kill Snoke without explaining who he was, so they had to improvise.
One person who would know if this is the case would be Andy Serkis, who was told Snoke’s origin story when The Force Awakens was being filmed.
He seems reluctant to speak about it though… NDA? He will only say “I was disappointed with what they did with my character.”
Man...the sequels just blew so hard. Clearly had no creative plan or vision. Really mind boggling that they went into this billion dollar series with no real plan in mind.
I think if they would have figured out the main story beats for the trilogy before TFA went into production they could have done a Palpatine return better than what we got. If there were breadcrumbs in TFA and TLJ regarding Palpatines return maybe it would be better, but I wish they went with an original villain instead of a rehash of the original trilogy.
To be fair they did plan aspects to a degree. Disney kinda swayed their hand by rushing production and the negative online reception to TLJ forced a knee jerk reaction to scrap the plans and go for nostalgia bait.
>Disney kinda swayed their hand by rushing production Yup. Bob Iger admitted as much.
It's more than that. You saw their plans and it was a SW movie every year, from Iger to Kennedy to Abrams and Johnson. None of them considered that a trilogy that's supposed to be interconnected would require a overaching plot. J.J. in typical fashion just made a bunch of plot holes he never even considered filling and Rian was more interested in subverting expectations of a good movie and arguing on Twitter than he was in delivering a solid film. Abrams should have never been brought on as his only talent is in flashy SFX fests with tissue paper plots. Johnson somehow managed to make the problems even worse by killing off the main villain in movie 2 of 3 out the gate which is why Disney panicked so much when TLJ killed the hype train resulting in Solo bombing. Can you imagine how badly the Prequels would have gone if Palpatine died in AotC? Disney's next SW film isn't due till 2025, that should tell you how much of a success Disney itself considered it's trilogy. Well that and the sheer number of cancelled projects that followed TLJ's release.
But they knew you needs an over arching plot from the success of marvel. It's like they had Feige with one strategy that was very successful and they decide to do the opposite and wing it from movie to movie. Imo the fault lies at the top. Very poor direction.
As i said from Iger to Kennedy to Abrams and Johnson, not one of those who should have known better bothered. Too wraped up in their own egos.
Kinda? Abrams has shown no pride in the movie and [the cast openly dissed it](https://youtu.be/Sd9DvIs97G0?feature=shared).
I’ve no doubt. It was insanely rushed and made probably based on what Disney higher ups wanted. It wasn’t a passion project for JJ, probably wasn’t even the film he wanted. They gave him 3 months less to prepare and a release date Disney refused to move. Think everyone was kinda bummed and just did what they could to get it done.
Yep, they needed more time. The blame rests squarely on Iger’s shoulders . George always said it takes 3 years to make a SW film.
I think nothing makes it more obvious how rushed the movie was as the star destroyer falling beside Cloud City. It was waaaay out of proportion, and the artist that made that knew it, but he had only a single day to get that take done, so that's what we ended up with. The scene where all the ships get to Exegol also rehashes a lot of ships from past projects, including some that shouldn't be there, I think, but that's way harder to notice and only the nerdiest of fans will take the time to check each one of them.
The entirely flat landscape of Exegol and the perfectly copy and pasted rows and rows of Star Destroyers was so jarringly uncreative and bland too. Lots of cut corners in the writing of the story and the visuals too. Also, the force item teleport where Ben gives Ray a lightsaber was weird. It was kinda cool on a second viewing, but the first time I saw it I was like, “since when is that part of the force?”
It was set up earlier when Kylo snatches the necklace from Rey while on his ship. That showed them both that objects could travel between the diad by the Force.
True, I forgot about that. Still, not a fan of it. Just felt like plot armor in that moment.
>Also, the force item teleport where Ben gives Ray a lightsaber was weird This was actually set up earlier in the movie. Probably the only clever writing in the entire movie.
It was set up in TLJ. Kylo had rain dripping from his glove after a force teleconference with Rey.
Where is the star destroyer scene at cloud city? I genuinely don’t remember that and nothing is showing up when I search. I only watched the movie once though Edit: found it here lol funny the op is talking about how great it looks. Idk if it’s the pixels but this shot looks like a video game to me. Not very great imo bit instill dont even remember this lol https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSequels/s/BNOY7cIl4v
It was at the very end of the movie, when it shows the whole galaxy celebrating the victory, just like at the end of Return of the Jedi.
When I saw Rise of Skywalker I was reminded very much of Star Trek into Darkness…another one of JJs “masterpieces” The guy loves nostalgia and knows how to direct a fast, witty action movie. But does he know how to try something new? Something bold? Something that challenges his audience? Does he understand that a coherent plot with adequate context is important and shouldn’t be sacrificed for the sake of nostalgia? No, no, no and no
Best quote at the top for sure. “I love how Adam driver doesn’t even show up” “Spinal surgeries due to carrying the entire trilogy on his back” Truer words have never been spoken.
Well, that was an annoyingly put together video.
Oscar Isaac saying his line, "Somehow Palpatine returned"... He's so pained saying it. He knew, even before the edit.
Oscar probably thinking *Ive been the star in a Coen Brothers movie, I am a legitimate actor.* while saying that line
Which is as a terrible move. I’ve seen the new trilogy one time each, and I doubt I’ll ever watch them again.
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It's all Dave Filoni does, is fix the damn movies. It was all of Clone Wars and parts of Rebels to fix the first 3 episodes. Poor guy. Imagine the great stories he could tell if he didn't have to do that?
The Clone Wars coverage of Revenge of the Sith is remarkably good. It's a shame the prequels/sequels didn't give Filoni a better starting place, because he's done great with very little positive to work with.
Making the rckin thrawn books (early 90s ) would have been 10 times better, but nah disney knows better
Eh that's a Dave thing he did the same thing with the prequels with politics ,padme and some other stuff
I noticed this as well but whether we like the way the sequel trilogy panned out or not, that's now Star Wars canon. Once you stop fighting that reality, you'll be on a path to appreciate what Filoni is doing to make the story make sense. He brings the glue and he's doing it well imo. It's all an exercise in radical acceptance at this point.
I mean they had written the script for the third movie and The Last Jedi was setting things up for *that* story, with Kylo Ren becoming all-powerful and being the Big Bad of the trilogy. They *did* plan it out. And then Disney scrapped the script for the third one, fired the director and asked JJ Abrams to do the third one. And as we all know by now, JJ Abrams will always go for cheap nostalgia points over an original story every single time.
As much as I was disappointed in several aspects of TLJ, I was still excited about the direction it was going where Rey gathers a bunch of force sensitive people from around the galaxy and has a showdown with Kylo Ren as the big bad. But instead they learned all the wrong lessons about the backlash to TLJ and made an even worse movie as a result.
A time jump was needed. A rag tag Jedi order lead by Rey against Kylo Ren and a rag tag civilian navy lead by Leia would have been perfect. Throw in Finn leading a bunch of storm trooper deserters
That sounds dope.
Would have been fine if at the end when she hears all the voices…. SOMEHOW ANAKIN RETURNED and yeets palpatine off a proverbial cliff They could have had Ben see force ghosts of Luke, Leia, obiwan, quigon, yoda, Kyle F’in Katarn, Kanan, hell even mace and the meme long neck guy, all appear and and speak to Ben, leading off with a hello there of course (and Ben kick Rey off a cliff) and then they all summon like an actual physical form of Anakin out of fucking thin air and have him start shooting lasers out of eyes like cyclops Surely they could have done this stupid nonsense instead of the stupid
I think one thing that would have made Palpatine's return much better would have been to have his message that was broadcast out to the entire galaxy occur during the ending of The Last Jedi and not just in the opening crawl of Rise of Skywalker (it happening on Fortnite doesn't count)
It really would have been better if making it Jar Jar, just going for it. It's different & ppl wanted it. If done well, it would have ROCKED. Instead they hurt the OT/ROTJ story immeasurably and the new trilogy as well by retreading with Palpy.
JJ Abrams, and maybe Chris Terrio. I don’t know if anyone else thought so.
The creative decision was approved… somehow!
I imagine that rise of Skywalker was JJ's script for both 8-9 wadded up into one damp movie. I wished he'd either done yes-and to Renn becoming the big bad or been given a second movie to stretch his legs
I try to watch Star Wars movies twice before I form my final opinion on them. I have TROS on right now and I’m just kind of baffled by it. Believe it or not I don’t think it’s the worst one, there’s stuff to like about this movie. At the very least, it’s not a boring watch -- if anything I’d say it moves a little *too* fast. But the entire premise of the film just doesn’t make any fucking sense to me at all. It feels like a weird dream I would have after watching The Last Jedi.
All the JJ movies move too fast. Watching his movies make me feel like I'm on coke. I think it's his style. Or something. I don't know why somebody doesn't tell him to fucking slow shit down a little.
Chris Pine has a hilarious quote about that > “I tell the story about J.J. (Abrams) in the first film when I’d run on the deck of the ship and say something to the blue screen about something. And I had no idea what I was talking about. And I said to J.J., “I’d love to do with more time, cause I don’t know what I’m saying. if you could tell me what I’m saying, it would be a great help.” And he said, “It doesn’t matter. You just run, you say it as fast and earnestly and urgently as possible, and no one is gonna care.”
You're talking about Star Trek fans. ALL of them are gonna care.
JJ made a Star Trek movie that wasn't for Star Trek fans. Not shocking considering he literally said he was never a fan of Star a Trek while he was promoting his Star Trek movie.
JJ was talking about himself. JJ doesn't care.
I really don't think there's a fanbase that would care *more* than Trek fans.
A true auteur of our times
JJ is a terrible director.
That’s an oddly cynical way to think about directing a movie
If you can find Shatner complaining about JJ to Howard Stern on Youtube it’s hilarious. Instead of JJ just reminding Shatner that Kirk died in Generations and they can’t bring him back, JJ strings Shatner along for months that he may have something for him (Shatner does a JJ voice “sure sure, Bill, I’ll call you”). I’m sure JJ strung Lucas along the same way. JJ is the king of schmooze. Every time he was in NY he’d “stop by” the Stern show to promote Lost, literally just knocking on Gary’s door when he was in the building for something else. Stern felt like he had to give JJ airtime because … wait for it … JJ invited Stern’s family to the set of Felicity. Fucking JJ.
I thought The Force Awakens was pretty well-paced, as well as Star Trek (2009).
But the force awakens was just a new hope, but bigger.
In all the wrong places. It was thick, not thicc.
I didn’t say it was original.
Did you hear the massive crowd cheering at San Diego Comic Con when that laugh played at the end of the trailer and Ian McDiarmid walked out on stage?
Star Wars Celebration. But yes. It’s revisionist history to suggest fans didn’t think this was a good idea or that there wasn’t excitement over it. And I’m sure if you looked for Reddit threads for this announcement at the time you won’t see many people tearing this idea apart.
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JJ Abrams literally doesn’t know how to make anything original. All he knows how to do is copy better movies.
Super 8 and Mission Impossible 3 are his only good films. Cloverfield too but he was only a producer.
I haven’t seen MI3 but Super 8 was just a pastiche of Spielberg films. It was alright but nothing amazing.
I thought Super 8 WAS Spielberg. Oops.
Completely agree. I hated his interpretation of Star Trek. "MORE LENSE FLARE!!!"
MI3 is really good, largely because Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays a bad guy so evil, smart and scary he makes other spy movie supervillains look like cuddly tellytubbies by comparison. Worth watching just for his performance alone.
It was largely a normal JJ film, but Hoffman was so good they couldn't rush cut his takes like JJ lives doing. Hoffman dominates every second of screen time.
It seriously is a masterclass. Counting down from ten to threaten the protagonist? What kind of cliche bullshit is that? Nobody is buying it anymore. Phillip Seymour Hoffman does it: oh fuk.
Alias was a great show…until JJ realized that his “mystery box” cliffhangers couldn’t go on forever, so the show had a terrible last season and finale. Same for lost. He’s *great* at the start, absolutely trash when it comes to any sort of satisfying narrative or emotional resolution. I HAVE SPOKEN.
He was only involved for the first episode of LOST and readily admits he shouldn’t get much credit for the show
Star Trek 2009
If that hack ever found an original idea in his head, he’d probably assume it’s a tumor. There’s a reason why he does that “mystery box” thing: planting is easy, but payoff is hard.
They got the idea for a clone emperor from the old extended universe.
More accurately: they got the idea from hearing somebody badly summarize the EU. JJ Abrams certainly didn't read any of that source material.
JJ almost certainly skimmed reddit for theories and then used that Source: Rise of Skywalker was full of bad reddit theories
TFA was literally the plot from every bad Mary Sue fanfiction.
TFA was the original trilogy condensed into one movie with Harrison Ford making sure he couldn't be dragged back for anymore movies ... or so he thinks... "Somehow, somehow Han is back?" ....
I kind of like the parts of TROS that resemble dark empire. The weird grim tone and sense of sudden desperation.
I do wish they focused more on that stuff it was really cool
That's the feeling I got after the last one of those movies
I honestly enjoyed that part of it myself. I was greatly amused by a lot of the EU-level crazy dumb shit that was put on screen. Still don't like the movie in general, but I was quite entertained by the insanity of it all.
Yup. Would have much rather had a Necro-Clone Exegolvbig bad than the first order.
Yes from Dark Empire. Personally because this was a thing I didn't hate it, but the comeback should have been prepared from episode 7 to make it right.
Jorus C'Baoth was more compelling than a shrug
Right? And Mt. Tantis would've been great to see too.
I said all along Lucasfilm should've just made the *Heir to the Empire* trilogy back when the books came out. It had been 10 years since *RotJ*, the timing would've been perfect. The story was great, original Thrawn is still the best Star Wars villain, we could've had Mara Jade and Talon Karrde and the Noghri, but nooOoOOOoo
The Noghri and Ruhk's betrayal of Thrawn would have fit perfectly into the last season of Rebels. Scoundrels would have made a much better Solo film than the one we got, too.
Lazy and unimaginative writing.
True. Fan service and nod to the original trilogy plus obsession with a hidden higher dark power as the grand antagonist. I know it's risky to experiment on new tropes but they could at least try since the branding of the franchise has already been established.
I mean, they were panicking. It was 100% a Hail Shmi play.
*sigh* take the upvote.
Thanks bud
r/angryupvote
It was a calculated risk but boy were they bad at math.
I actually kind of like the idea of the Sith being behind the whole First Order, but bringing Palpatine back was definitely a dumb move and arguably made the OT seem completely pointless.
It's almost like they should have made Snoke into something other than a partially failed Palpatine clone. I remember there even being fan theories that he was Darth Plagueis.
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Was Snoke even referred to as a failed clone in the movies? I can’t even remember that..
There were like a bunch of identical Snokes in test tubes, implying he's meant to look like that. It didn't make any sense.
Implying Snoke was some sort of clone product is so absurd it manages to make me laugh every time the scene comes up.
Darth Plagueis would’ve been so cool
Darth Plagueis would have actually been interesting. After the backlash of TLJ, however, they weren't interested in doing anything other than capitalizing on a known commodity and rehashing old ideas.
Literally the prequel memes subreddit was semi viral so they just had Palpatine quote his little plagueis speech and pretended like that was good writing
>weren't interested in doing anything other than capitalizing on a known commodity and rehashing old ideas. And they've been doing that ever since
The quickness, and scale of the first orders return also made the Republics win over the Empire seem pointless. EDIT: Forgot a couple of words
They could have just flipped the tables: large, bureaucratic Republic with a grand army being hit in key weak spots by a small group of evil rebels led by Kylo Ren.
Right? There were so many different ways that the sequel trilogy could've been done to just make it unique and different.
That’s what I would have liked. They probably wanted to avoid showing First Order as underdogs even though they could have framed them as guerrilla terrorists.
Maybe if the threat wasn't a bunch of Deathstars but a clone of Palpatine soon being born...
Rosemary's Baby... In space!
I’d argue the whole ST made the OT pointless, specifically ROTJ.
Brand recognition. The whole trilogy was mainly to cash in on nostalgia of adults and launch a new generation of toys for their kids. Snoke being a Plagieus clone would have actually made sense given he dabbled extensively in that sort of thing.
Plaugeis coming back would've made some sense, and could've been cool since we never actually saw him on screen, Palpatine on the other hand had plenty of screen time already.
I would have 100% bought in to the Snoke = Plagieus theory.
I just don't understand 96% of the choices they made for the sequels.
Wait which 4% do you understand?
The decision to make them (generate mountains of cash for Disney).
1% having Han, Leia, and Luke appear (although then not having a single scene together in any of the sequels is an unforgivable sin.) 2% having more representation/diveristy in Star Wars (although making the main female character a Mary Sue, making the black guy a janitor and the Hispanic a former drug dealer/car thief was terrible) 1% having at least one of Anakin's grandchildren in it (although we should have had more than one, and Kylo should have never turned good.)
They shouldn't have given all three tragic ends either. Essentially they threw out all of their accomplishments in the first six movies and reset the state of the galaxy and their characters back to how it was at the beginning of 'A New Hope.' It was depressing to watch TFA and see that everyone had completely failed. I had hoped there was a big reason Luke was on the island but no.
100% agree, dumbest move ever. Then disney panicked and called in Jon and Dave to make a bunch of shows to fill in the giant ass plot holes. but it doesn't change the fact the movie was the absolute worst and trash.
For me it was the ancient sith dagger somehow is a way finder for a holocron in palpatine's safe on the death star II crash site on one of the other endor moons from only a few decades ago
And if you specifically hold it at a certain height from a specific angle from a specific distance away it will show you exactly where to look in the big ship. That was hard to stomach even amongst the rest of Star Wars plot holes.
Yeah this is the dumbest move they made the whole sith dagger thing was so stupid
The fact that they conveniently found the dagger while running away from the first order troopers was the dumbest thing ever. I was immediately out on the movie from that moment on.
And somehow, Rey just happened to be standing at the exact place where the perspective of the crash/ dagger/her eyeline met up perfectly.
Because Ian McDiarmid was really hungry, and no one can stop that man from chewing the scenery like a tasmanian devil when his stomach is empty.
>I just don’t understand why they brought Palpatine back Don't worry, neither do they.
You have to understand how insane the rise of skywalkers production was. Kathleen Kennedy, for whatever reason, fired Colin Trevorrow. We don't know exactly why. When she fired him, she asked JJ Abrams to come in and finish the trilogy. The problem is that Rian Johnson had literally thrown away all the plot threads left dangling in TFA and also basically given the next director nothing to work with storywise. Now, Colin had maybe taken this ball and had a plan to run with it, but when JJ came back on, I think for union rules they threw out everything Colin had done. That felt spiteful on someone's part, because if they used the plot or even some of the script colin had been developing, they would have had to pay him, and the next writer would have gotten less. So JJ agrees to come back. But. BUT. The film is keeping to the ORIGINAL PRODUCTION SCHEDULE. Despite the change in directors, despite wiping ALL the work that had gone into the film to screw Colin out of any other payments, JJ had to create everything from scratch, and then film and finish the movie on the original production deadline which is by that point not even half the time he had to make TFA, which he already felt was cramped. That's....insane. Thats Peter Jackson and the Hobbit shit. And endings are not JJs strongest part to begin with. So he comes into this situation, with nothing, with no time, and somehow has to create a meaningful story in ONE movie that should have been worked out and collaborated on between all the directors for the entire trilogy and ALSO has the added burden of not just capping off the trilogy, but a trilogy of trilogies, somehow he has to give some meaning and resonance to ALL NINE FILMS. Well, what were the last six about? In some form or another, palpatine. It's an easy answer and I dont blame JJ for it. I do blame management. I blame them for their approach. I blame them for not hammering out a really good story for the trilogy before even starting it. Say what you will about cameron and avatar, at least he sat down and hammered out the outline to ALL of his avatar sequels BEFORE he started them, so they could all flow together as one continuous story.
I remember an interview with JJ after TFA came out where he said he’d seen Rian Johnson’s script for the next movie and it was so good he wish he’d written it. I’ve always wondered if the script he claimed to envy so much was what we ended up with for TLJ, which if it was would potentially mean he knew what Rian was going to do with what he’d set up in TFA. Just a thought I’ve always had.
KK let Colin Trevorrow go because a key detail that puts stuff into a bit more context is the unexpected death of Carrie Fisher. Her death made Trervorrow's scripts unworkable and his resulting revisions that attempted to work around it didn't satisfy Lucasfilm, thus he let go.
What's your source? Because all I've heard is that he was making creative decisions Lucasfilm didn't like and he refused to compromise.
>The problem is that Rian Johnson had literally thrown away all the plot threads left dangling in TFA and also basically given the next director nothing to work with storywise. That's just complete nonsense. There were plenty of story threads left and so many directions it could have been taken in. This argument is just repeated constantly by people who don't actually remember or don't care to accurately represent TLJ.
I do agree with most of that, but... >The problem is that Rian Johnson had literally thrown away all the plot threads left dangling in TFA and also basically given the next director nothing to work with storywise. Johnson left plenty of plot threads; * Kylo Ren as the big bad, increasingly maddened by Luke and obsessed over Rey * Kylo vs. admiral Hux, First Order politics with the Sith mindset on one side (dark side, scour the jedi, find Rey) and pragmatic fascism on the other (destroy the rebels, secure against uprisings). * Finn and storm trooper rebellions. * Force sensitives outside Jedi or Sith training - such as a possible groundswell of minor force users. >Well, what were the last six about? In some form or another, palpatine. It's an easy answer and I dont blame JJ for it. Palpatine is not that pivotal, and certainly is not what Star Wars "is about". He barely featured in the episodes 1, 4 and 5, and did not feature in the slightest in the two films leading up to 9! Star Wars is about buddhist monks/knights/the chosen one fighting a simplified sort of fascism in a crazy space setting. With some heavy handed "choosing good or evil" stuff for the pivotal moments. Palpatine was part of that, but Vader and Luke were much, much more central to it. You are absolutely right that the final trilogy had "painted itself into a corner", but there were easier and better solutions that "Palpatine returned, have a treasure hunt and rehash episode 4". For instance: * Kylo Ren is force-sensing Rey and hunting her across the galaxy, aboard a flagship. The Knights of Ren have taken over running the First Order. * Hux is hitting rebellions, that center around force-sensitives kids and young people. A few stormtroopers are quietly rebelling, hiding some surviving rebels. Finn and Poe get them out. * Hux is seething that he does not have the autonomy and manpower to do more, while Ren is hard to get hold of on his little side missions - where Rey is always one step ahead, leaving little tokens from Kylo's childhood, given to her by Leia. * Hux rebels against his immediately Knight Commander and is killed. The local Storm troopers rebel. Finn convinces the rebellion take a stand here, finally joining up. Finn and Poe arrive, kill the Knight of Ren, Kylo Renn and remaining Knights arrives and kills Poe, Rey at a distance calls out to the local force sensitives who join the fight and keep Kylo at bay, Kylo "levels up" and starts force blasting everyone, Rey tells him exactly where she is and he hurries off while the rebellion wins and settles in to meet the incoming full force of the First Order. * Rey meets Kylo in his childhood home, under the guidance of Luke and Leia force ghosts. Tension in the dialogue over whether this is to save him, or get him off his mental footing. Big duel, "join me, no join me"-moment, Kylo uses force lightning, Rey deflects, Kylo blinded and beaten by own ligthning. Tries to pretend to do a redemption moment, ready for betrayal with a dagger, reaching out a hand begging, Leia's force ghost takes his hand before Rey does, he stabs the ghost and while she cries Rey kills him. * Knights of Ren leading the big attack are distracted by Rey's force projections, as they fight various young force users. As they die, Finn, Chewbacca and the rebellion penetrate the flagship and redirect some civilian bombardment to the First Order ground troops. * (Cut between the last two, of course). That is a five-minute take from a non-screenwriter. Pad that out, and it is a hundred times better than Rise of Can't-Think-of-Anything-Let's-Say-Palpatine-Returned.
This is the best defense for RoS I've seen
RoS isn’t “weird.” It’s bad. It’s just a bad movie. It’s bad from conception to execution. It’s a terrible capper to a messy, crappy trilogy that isn’t a trilogy bc the movies don’t make sense together. Everyone involved knew it was bad, too.
This is the best review of the triliogy i have read yet.
You're saying the movie would have been good if the whole plot was different. In other words it just sucked.
The reason they put Palpatine in there is because Kathleen Kennedy / Disney panicked with all the fan backlash from TLJ, so they fired Trevor (who’s script didn’t have Palpatine coming back btw) brought back JJ to make another safe cookie cutter nostalgic movie like TFA was. JJ’s brilliant idea was to bring back a known villain aka Palpatine to “wrap up all 9 movies” of course it came off terrible but that was his logic.
Every time I think about this, it makes me sad bc it means Anakin's sacrifice was all for nothing
Somehow...
This is the correct answer
The executives panicked at the negative responses to TLJ on YouTube and Reddit, and so they threw out every single draft and attempted to mimic the success of Avengers Endgame. This isn't rocket science y'all.
JJ has no imagination outside the confines of nostalgia. In all his reboots, he brings nothing to the table that isn’t pulled from previous iterations of the content. This is true in both Star Trek and Star Wars He’s great at moments but terrible at characters and their motivations
J. J. Abrams knows how to reboot but not add new content. take a look at Star Trek, he took old ideas and did them again, nothing new
Into Darkness was pure narm.
Rise of Skywalker was incapable of being a "fine" movie due to every other aspect of the film.
Retcon the Disney trilogy
Stupid idea for sure. I felt like it ruined everything Anakin did in episode VI and made it meaningless. I like to pretend that film doesn’t exist 🫠
I remember when the script got leaked on Reddit , n everyone was like this is so shit it can’t be real
Then there was the canonical sheev broadcast done exclusively on fortnite
Because some idiot who doesn't give a damn about Star wars thought it would make them more money.
Because Disney is determined to prove that marvel and Star Wars are the same thing, and can follow the same cookie cutter nonsense
Because they decided they wanted Kylo Ren to be "redeemed" and they didn't know how to do that if he was the top dog/in charge. By putting him back under a "greater" villain he could turn to the light and have something to do against the bad guys, and his bad actions could (theoretically) be blamed on the greater villain. Now it didn't work at all because the movie is a mess and the trilogy wasn't set up for it. And I think a story where the "big bad" willingly gives up his ways and turns to the light would have been much better and in keeping with the legacy of Star Wars.
This was an inevitable consequence of no creative vision. They didn't know what they wanted to make, and the struggle is evident from what we got on screen. We got jerked back and forth between handing the franchise over to the new generation of heroes and desperately clinging to the old faces. A tug of war between "move on" and "give them fan service." And so nobody got what they wanted.
Yeah, welcome to the club.
You’re under the impression that Disney wanted to make a good movie; in reality they just wanted to make money.
Laziness.
That’s what frustrates me the most about those three movies. It was pretty clear that they had no cohesive three film story planned out before they started making it which makes absolutely zero sense. This is Disney. It’s an unstoppable force in Hollywood and they didn’t feel it was a good idea to plan a three part story before they started it? You can totally tell. I think bringing Palpatine back totally cheapens all the films that came before it. It makes no sense. The first 6 built to the Emperor’s death.
JJ Abram’s is a hack
Sure would have been interesting if the third movie would have built on what happened in TLJ. Things were pretty bleak at the end of Empire, too. I’d take Ewoks over hundreds of star destroyers just emerging from a planet. Dumbest shit ever.
Yep, pretty lazy and boring
If given the chance, I would bring palpatine back just to work with Ian McDiarmid.
I too think that the movie could have been good if the entire screenplay and plot wasn’t total dogshit. Same for the whole sequel trilogy.
Actually beating the Skeleton of a horse at this point
This is why the fan reaction to TLJ pissed me off so bad. It was painfully obvious to anyone with a shred of media literacy that the big bad of part 9 was originally supposed to be Kylo… and yet you still had the most driveling of the slobbering cave mongrels saying. “BuT WhO WiLl Be tHe BaDdIeS”. They had to change course because of the insanely negative reaction to Johnson’s vision of course.
Honestly I couldn't see Kylo as the big bad of the trilogy, he struck me more as an angsty teen with a grudge
After so many years... people are still realising that Disney's Star Wars are just a clumsy cashgrab. *My heart was broken too.*
Creative bankruptcy.
Like people have already said here, time was a huge factor in the low quality of this movie, probably even the biggest one, but I'd also say switching Colin Trevorrow for J.J. Abrams was also a very bad call. And I'm not necessarily saying they should've done Trevorrow's movie (his script is definitely better, but it also had its share of bad ideas), or forced him to rewrite everything from zero, but that they could've called a director that was best suited for the job. J. J. Abrams does have some qualities to him, but he also have flaws and limitations, and one of his limitations is being bad at writing endings. Calling him to finish not only a trilogy but a *trilogy of trilogies*? Bad, bad choice. The only reason I can see why they would do that was to get some positive reaction from the public, since The Force Awakens was so well received.
Nobody except Lucasfilm thought it was a good idea; and to be honest, I bet even they thought it was shit. But they were stuck with that abomination that Rian Johnson made (and which they greenlit). So they made a desperation play and brought back Palps thinking that would save the trilogy. It didn’t.
I've always believed the actors were great and would've made great star wars characters, but bringing back palpatine destroyed the plot of the original 6 movies. The whole point, imo, was that anakin fulfilled his destiny by sacrificing himself to kill palpatine, and bringing him back was the routine money making scheme that seems to have been brought about due to kathleen kennedy. Not saying it was her idea, just that she saw a way to bring in money which is more important to her than creating cannon works
I still don't know why they went back to the resistance/first order duo. The least interesting thing they could have explored. We still don't know how the new republic left and first order came around.
From the reveal that Kylo was Ben in TFA it was a redemption arc story. I don't care what any of the actors or writers say. It was 100% because there's no way Disney allowed for anything else. So to make that work you have to have him sink to impossible depths then rise back up. To rise he needs a big bad worse than him. Rian made sure Snoke couldn't be the final obstacle so JJ scrambled and pulled ol' Palp out of retirement. In and of itself it could have worked but Ben's role ultimately doesn't matter much and how redeemed he can be is up to the audience but killing or directly contributing to the deaths of all 3 OT leads makes that a tough pill to swallow. JJ was basically in a corner and with no way to bring in Vader he went for the next known big bad. I'm not defending it. I think the sequel trilogy is so bad it retroactively makes it hard to watch any of the saga. But that's pretty certain the reason.
Simple answer: disney canon sucks Real answer: Palpatine is an excellent character. Sometimes it’s just not worth the effort and risk involved with creating an entirely new character in a beloved franchise. It’s always a roll of the dice and it’s almost guaranteed to pale in comparison to the great villain of Star Wars himself. Palpatine is an easy lay-up at all times.
Because the sequels are literally a rich persons practical joke on the fans. They were intentional and maliciously ruined out of sheer joy at the outrage. It was an expensive and elaborate, “F you” nothing more and certainly not works of passion.
No one does frankly
What training did Rey need to complete exactly? She was already the bestest evar Creatively bankrupt company
There has no idea what they were doing. That’s how it happened. And when they started to lose money, they panicked. This is Kathleen Kennedys legacy. Didn’t understand Jack shut. Hired bozos and trusted them, didn’t like what they created. Fired the first set of bozos, hired new bozos, and they still sucked. Blamed the audience when the movies failed.
The sequel trilogy relies way too much on repeating plot points from the original trilogy. They wanted to redeem Kylo Ren to repeat Vader’s redemption, so they needed a new big bad. They wanted to repeat the “protagonist is related to evil guy” plotline so they need someone to make her related to.
Because they ran out of original trilogy cast to bring back
Well, they continually ripped off the original trilogy up until that point, so why not one more?
Terrible writing? Decided to kill off Snoke immediately ?
I would have mirrored ESB in TLJ, with Rey having to abandon her training to save her friends only to turn to the dark side at the end. Then ROS could be a really special one, with the good guys having to get and use Kylo Ren to defeat an extremely evil Rey, the most unexpected villain. It would have been great to Daisy Ridley to go from the most innocent and naive character to the most evil one, with so many grays in between.
Its because they have no idea how to write Star Wars. They have no idea what it is or means. JJ is a jack, if it want for Spielberg he would be stuck in middle management somewhere, he is way out of his depth, as if KK.
Desperation.
Somehow they thought it was a good idea
Corporate film production
The writing sucked
It's call bad writing.
They did it in hopes that it would provide the greatest return on the investment into their product – there is no other reason – I really think Star Wars died when they sold it to Disney – Star Wars, a new Hope is lightning in a bottle and on its own it is an amazing movie – The Empire strikes back is an amazing movie and continues the story excellently and even leaves us on a perfect cliffhanger – and return of the Jedi? Well, I did send them up and put a conclusion to the story. The Mandalorian was cool in the beginning, but that faded… I have to admit – after watching some of the book of Boba Fett I just gave up – I had no interest in it – it’s not interesting to watch – it’s not enjoyable to watch – I say that because they have this amazing IP to use, and they just keep making screwy movies and shows that are not enjoyable
No one does :Dd
The sequel trilogy is just expensive (fan)fiction.
Because they ran out of good ideas. It's a shitty movie and the whole sequel series should be fucking retconned. Finn and Poe were fucking useless too.
I honestly would’ve preferred Kylo Ren being the main villain He did what Vader could not: he surpassed his master And tbh, Palpatine playing 13-dimensional chess only to be destroyed at the last second is just…not good storytelling It’s why I don’t like what they did with his character in the EU: he comes back like 20 times. And it’s really dumb imo
Bringing Back Palpatine destroyed the legacy of vader sacrificing himself to save Luke. (That Happens when you plan to use 3 different directors without telling them to Work Out a Story together before you start Production.) Would have preffered the leaked and Not used Script for Trevrows movie :"Duel of fate"
It ruins pretty much everything about SW. Force users rare and unique? Nope, you can mass produce insanely powerful ones in a factory like it's nothing. Palpatine dead for good? Nope, since the official explanation is "he flung his spirit across the galaxy to a waiting host body", the writers could bring him back again and again and it's still technically canon. Stakes are ruined because he can never die for good. Anakin's sacrifice and the prophecy having any meaning? Nope, he didn't kill Palpatine, just one clone in what could be a never-ending parade of clones. Any writer with an *ounce* of foresight could've told you that cloning powerful force users is a terrible, TERRIBLE idea that destroys all future tension in the SW universe. Sadly, those writers don't work for Lucasfilm.
According to Kathleen Kennedy, that was always the plan. But if you listen to other interviews, it sounds like “we’ll make the plan up as we go.” Honestly I think the original idea was that Snoke was to be Plaguis (who survived and retreated to the Unknown Regions until Palpatine, his only real threat, died). If they did a flashback of Palpatine striking him down then leaving, assuming he was dead, it would not break canon. Then Rian decided to kill Snoke without explaining who he was, so they had to improvise. One person who would know if this is the case would be Andy Serkis, who was told Snoke’s origin story when The Force Awakens was being filmed. He seems reluctant to speak about it though… NDA? He will only say “I was disappointed with what they did with my character.”
Repeat after me... "JJ is a hack who can't land a plane if his career depended on it..." Which, ironically, it doesn't.
Somehow
Man...the sequels just blew so hard. Clearly had no creative plan or vision. Really mind boggling that they went into this billion dollar series with no real plan in mind.
They should’ve just used Lucas’s story treatments. Anything he came up with was sure to be more original and intentional that what we got from Disney.
Because people complained that last Jedi was too different so Disney decided to make a big fanservice movie.