Spoilers Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - Grading & Discussion

Ok, interesting. I did happen to prefer both Rogue One and Solo to the ST.

 

But in the OT, there was a clear direction and purpose for the spiritual/moral struggles of characters--it was intrinsically tied to the greater religious conflict between the Light & Dark sides of the Force and shaped that universe, as opposed to the ST, where the lead characters have no purpose at all, and do things "just because." But that's what happens when characters are created not to tell a story but to serve agendas (e.g. Finn being a deliberately created Black Buffoon stereotype) having nothing to do with the Star Wars story as Lucas created it.

Maul was the OT-Boba Fett of the PT, in that he was originally meant to be a single purpose who was killed off (like Fett in the OT), not some character ever intended to branch out into endless spin-off stories that were not necessary for the character's lone function in the movies he was created to be in. Specifically, his single purpose in TMP was not that he had any existing backstory worth learning (nor was it created at the time of his film appearance); no, he was the arrogant hammer of Palpatine who killed Jinn / gave Obi-Wan his own focus going forward in a parallel to Vader cutting down Kenobi in Star Wars, which (in several important ways) give Luke a new resolve to move forward. So, Maul was effective as the single purpose character as originally intended.

The idea of stealing children should have been the perspective of Finn--his losing his unique cultural identity / the trauma of being taken from his family, and that should have inspired him to disrupt the FO from within, then, if he's forced to escape, return as a revolutionary who gave the protagonists a greater purpose from someone who--like countless others--had a new empire built on their shoulders. That would have added a reason for the FO being something to fight, and not what was filmed: Finn being a scared, sweating Black Buffoon always running away, unless chasing after Rey, who--by the way--also had no true purpose from the start in TFA.

 

Finn was set up to be the most interesting character in Star Wars history, but the ball was dropped HARD. And the thing is, he should have been there to bring shades of grey into Star Wars, but Star Wars doesn't work that well with shades of grey. So perhaps his character was a mistake to begin with...

 

I like Finn...

Could more have been done? Yup. But, he was still a very enjoyable character for me.

As for shades of gray, SW has had that since ESB to varying success.

 

The premise of the character is absolutely thrilling and Boyega is a good actor. But ultimately it seems that they really never knew what to do with his story. A strormtrooper developing a conscience and defecting is a really cool twist, but they really should have followed up with that. But no, stormtroopers still get mercilessly slaughtered and there really is no attempt, or even talk of an attempt to get more of them to defect. Finn meeting some other strormtrooper deserters is a tiny step in the right direction, but it's really not enough. Imagine how cool it would have been if a major turning point in this 'star war' was Finn orchestrating a large scale stormtrooper rebellion! It would have elevated the character of Finn, would have been a great culmination of his personal story and would have been a really cool way to show how the First Orders immoral recruiting policies could backfire.

 

If you start taking star wars fully realistically, then the rebels really are terrorists killing indiscriminately, and everything takes too dark of a turn to continue being enjoyable as an action movie. Finn's character should make us feel bad for the stormtroopers, and I think at some point the writers realized that we can't have the same crazy action sequences. So Finn was neutered.

 

Stargate SG 1 struggled in a similar manner with the Jaffa.

 

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-rise-skywalker-jedi-wrong-george-lucas/

 

It's an odd conclusion that states the Jedi are "deified." It's an interesting article, but even after the PT Lucas maintained that the Jedi were right about their view of the Force. So, Rey leaning on their wisdom makes sense, and doesn't deify them.

 

Lucas struggles to define his own concepts though. He talks about balance of the force... so everyone is thinking equal measures of darkness and light balances it... And that was the direction that Johnson wanted to send Star Wars. Now JJ reset it back to the original vision.

 

I think it ended up more balanced at the end.

 

I guess it's more balanced because Rey has a bit of light and dark in her or something?

 

That was part of it. I think the other part was actually having the full presence of the Sith face off against the full presence of the Jedi. Not just Palpatine vs. Yoda, but he major spiritual conflict of those two ideologies.

It actually was quite well done in terms of mirroring ROTS and Anakin's struggle. A Skywalker serving as the fulcrum which would leave the galaxy in light or darkness. Ah, it was awesome. I love a good space battle, but the spiritual stuff and the Force mythology was far more interesting to me.

 

Rey's darkness wasn't well done either IMO... Yeah she blew up that transport because she lost control, but that was just... not too well expanded on.

 

Rey was drawn to killing Palpatine. Her darkness was her feeling like she had nowhere else to turn, that the darkness inside her was calling and she couldn't resist it at the end, like she couldn't resist it at Ach-To.

Except Ben demonstrates choice. That's the beauty.

 

It lines up with the speech back at the rebel camp where the point is made that the forces they fight against want them to think they are alone, hopeless, and without choice. I felt it also went along with Rose's statement about fighting to protect what they love and not to destroy what they hate. Rey was too focused on the act of killing Palpatine to think of why she's doing this.

 

I never noticed them, but apparently three ships from Resistance, the current animated series, are in the Battle of Exegol. The ships are the Fireball, Yaeger's racer, and Tora Doza's ship.

 

Is is stated in either the new or old canon that Vader drew power from Sidious in such situations?

 

Who really made Rise Of Skywalker?? https://www.wired.com/story/cantina-talk-101/

This article also gushes over that iffy leaked script.

 

I don't know what to believe. It just sounds weird.
Maybe they filmed two different version with small differences and just chose one over the other.