Star Wars episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker

[MartyFine]

 

[HFCS]

The Rotten Tomatoes audience score for this thing is coming in so far drastically better than critics scores. Can't say I'm surprised after actually seeing the movie.

I think the critic score average went off the rails for sci-fi/comics/action movies a few years ago.

Years back 58% critic score wouldn't have shocked me for any sci-fi/comic movie that I actually liked, but now they've given many objectively bad movies in the category an 80+ rating that it's pretty much garbage.

I still like looking at the RT critic score for movies outside that space. Following the box office for kids movies closely the RT critic score has almost no connection to box office.

 

[BryceC]

The OT made such an indelible cultural mark and created so many legions of lifelong fans that they have kept coming back for decades now... despite the crappy prequels and the, as you put it, the underwhelming and derivative sequels. But the series is not creating new crops of that. They either are not going to exist in the first place (e.g., the kids dig the MCU nowadays) or they are just going to walk away from it (as I have).

Star Wars is consuming itself as a commercial product, not investing in itself. The quick fall in returns between 7, 8, Rogue One, and Solo show that. You can make so much off mediocre films decades later because the originals really had that much of an impact.

Again I think you're 90% agreeing with me.

If you don't think the new trilogy made new fans, I can tell you you're wrong. My kids like these the most. Rey and Kylo are their Star Wars characters.

 

[WalkingCY]

I always took it as the dark side was willing to break down "barriers" that the jedi had set for themselves as to not be the all-powerful beings in the universe. A jedi consciously made a choice that it wouldn't tap into the intense power that comes with the force, but rather harness the power and use it for good. My belief was Sith could revive and rejuvenate because they were constantly willing to push the limits of what they could do.

 

[Sigmapolis]

Again I think you're 90% agreeing with me.

If you don't think the new trilogy made new fans, I can tell you you're wrong. My kids like these the most. Rey and Kylo are their Star Wars characters.

Saying the sequel trilogy minted precisely zero new fans would be absurd, of course. A few of my cousins' children at least like the new ones.

I just do not think there are nearly as many of them as there were in the 1970s/1980s with the OT or even in the 1990s/2000s with the prequels.

I do not think kids today are going to turn into lifelong fanatics like people did with the OT, as well, or in nearly the same numbers. I would also postulate that kids nowadays are having a lot of "help" from their parents (or heck, even their grandparents at this point) getting into Star Wars when so many of those parents are lifelong fans.

The kids today are into the MCU or just time-killing YouTube videos, not Star Wars, making an obviously exaggerated but generally true statement about the cultural impact of these various franchises and entertainment products nowadays.

Lucas/Disney are still printing money on the impression the OT made. That fades eventually. The sequels are mining from that, not rebuilding it.

 

[CycloneWanderer]

After getting back from the movie, I find myself disappointed and kinda sad. The movie took a giant dump on the original story while playing off the emotions and nostalgia of the audience. The way the story is now the original trilogy accomplished nothing. Heck, JJ Abrams invalidated his own set-up in TFA. "Oh, you blew up 2 death stars/super death star and killed Vader/Snoke? No big deal, I got like like a thousand fully crewed planet-destroying ships and a build-a-sith workshop on my secret planet that literally no one knew existed until 5 minutes ago."

Literally nothing about the Sith planet makes decent sense within what we know/find out. Internal and external inconsistencies all over the place.

It would be like a Lord of the Rings sequel trilogy where they bring back Sauron except this time he has an army like 1k times bigger and requires that the heretofore unknown super-ring be thrown in the fires of Mt. MegaDoom. The only reason Sauron pretended to die in the first place was to out-live Frodo and Samwise. Oh, btw, Aragorn got depressed and hid from everyone, Gondor went to ****, Rohan gets destroyed in 5 seconds of screen time to demonstrate how powerful Sauron's new mega-army is, and the elves yeeted away a while ago because they just wanted to die in the first place. But, all the original characters from the LoTR trilogy get super-cool cameos and Sauron is defeated within a couple days of being discovered. Yay!

 

[HFCS]

Again I think you're 90% agreeing with me.

If you don't think the new trilogy made new fans, I can tell you you're wrong. My kids like these the most. Rey and Kylo are their Star Wars characters.

It's not apples to apples to compare the MCU to the Star Wars saga.

You can have an MCU movie that barely references other MCU movies and still call it a Marvel movie. Critics and fans even sometimes praise that. A Star Wars movie with no blasters, light sabers, star ships, the force, aliens, droids or stormtroopers isn't really a Star Wars movie.

 

[WalkingCY]

I don't care what anyone says, Spaceballs has to be in the top 5 of all time Star Wars flicks.

 

[shagcarpetjesus]

Saying the sequel trilogy minted precisely zero new fans would be absurd, of course. A few of my cousins' children at least like the new ones.

I just do not think there are nearly as many of them as there were in the 1970s/1980s with the OT or even in the 1990s/2000s with the prequels.

I do not think kids today are going to turn into lifelong fanatics like people did with the OT, as well, or in nearly the same numbers. I would also postulate that kids nowadays are having a lot of "help" from their parents (or heck, even their grandparents at this point) getting into Star Wars when so many of those parents are lifelong fans.

The kids today are into the MCU or just time-killing YouTube videos, not Star Wars, making an obviously exaggerated but generally true statement about the cultural impact of these various franchises and entertainment products nowadays.

Lucas/Disney are still printing money on the impression the OT made. That fades eventually. The sequels are mining from that, not rebuilding it.

Popular entertainment is so damn fragmented at this point that I don’t think we will really ever see a movie franchise have such a massive cultural impact as the original trilogy.

 

[BryceC]

Lucas/Disney are still printing money on the impression the OT made. That fades eventually. The sequels are mining from that, not rebuilding it.

When the A New Hope was made, movies were a lot bigger than they are now. As the previous poster said, there are very, very few things that everybody sees.

In 1977, 30% of all households in the US watched Laverne and Shirley, Happy Days, and Three's Company, with over 20 million people watching these shows per week. There were 178 million tickets sold to Star Wars.

In 2019, if you get a TV show with 10 million viewers that pretty much the biggest show on TV. Endgame sold 95 million tickets. There is nothing that will ever be as big as Star Wars, ever.

 

[harimad]

When the A New Hope was made, movies were a lot bigger than they are now. As the previous poster said, there are very, very few things that everybody sees.

In 1977, 30% of all households in the US watched Laverne and Shirley, Happy Days, and Three's Company, with over 20 million people watching these shows per week. There were 178 million tickets sold to Star Wars.

In 2019, if you get a TV show with 10 million viewers that pretty much the biggest show on TV. Endgame sold 95 million tickets. There is nothing that will ever be as big as Star Wars, ever.

It's even crazier that this was on a US population of 220.2 million. Compare that to 329.45 million in the year 2019.

 

[alarson]

I think overall there is no such thing as light or dark side force powers. Those are simply the construct through which the Jedi and Sith see them. But characters like Bendu from Rebels show that the force in nature is very much residing in the "grey" area.

I'm not sure if i've said it here or not, but breaking down the idea that one needs to be a rigid jedi or otherwise 'falls to the dark side' is where i thought the series was going to go

 

[alarson]

I think the critic score average went off the rails for sci-fi/comics/action movies a few years ago.

Years back 58% critic score wouldn't have shocked me for any sci-fi/comic movie that I actually liked, but now they've given many objectively bad movies in the category an 80+ rating that it's pretty much garbage.

I still like looking at the RT critic score for movies outside that space. Following the box office for kids movies closely the RT critic score has almost no connection to box office.

The audience score is tough as well, particularly early for big movies like this. due to who is booking those advance tickets for opening night a couple months in advance- mostly those who are big fans of the series to begin with.

 

[VeloClone]

When the A New Hope was made, movies were a lot bigger than they are now. As the previous poster said, there are very, very few things that everybody sees.

In 1977, 30% of all households in the US watched Laverne and Shirley, Happy Days, and Three's Company, with over 20 million people watching these shows per week. There were 178 million tickets sold to Star Wars.

In 2019, if you get a TV show with 10 million viewers that pretty much the biggest show on TV. Endgame sold 95 million tickets. There is nothing that will ever be as big as Star Wars, ever.

A big reason for all of that is the amount of options available. In 1977 the vast majority of homes had the large networks and possibly a local public television station. The ability to wait for a movie to "come out on cable" was pretty much non-existent. If you wanted to see the movie you had to go to the theater. If you missed it there you were likely waiting for several years before you would ever be able to see it on network TV.

 

[LincolnWay187]

I remember people who didnt like the last one got a ton of flack themselves for some reason. Wonder if we will see that again.

I'm loving Mando right now so we will see how this one is.

 

[Cyrocks]

I liked it.

 

[NorthCyd]

I remember people who didnt like the last one got a ton of flack themselves for some reason. Wonder if we will see that again.

I'm loving Mando right now so we will see how this one is.

The people who didn't like it didn't get flack. The people who wouldn't shut up about it and endlessly b!tched about it in EVERY Star Wars thread caught flack. There was a time where you couldn't talk about Star Wars on this site without someone bringing up how Rian Johnson had destroyed their childhood and murdered their family.

 

[khardbored]

Just got back from seeing it. Since it's been released for 24+ hours, I assume we're into spoilers? Yeah, lots coming.

These are my unfiltered thoughts, haven't read the thread the last 2 days.

I went in with very low expectations as I didn't care for Ep. 8, and, overall, I liked this one! I was really wondering how they were going to wrap everything up, and they did a pretty serviceable job.

Likes:
- I like that Admiral Pride (sp?) shot Hux. Seems like an Imperial thing to do.
- There was no overarching "romance" theme like I had feared
- Luke's part was limited, but good and effective
- Rose's part was minimal!
- The whole C3P0 memory wipe concept was well done. His humor was the "good" kind of funny, too.
- No pointless side-quests with a "social good"
- Ben's redemption was well done (As well as it possibly could be done. They essentially set it up that he either has to turn back to the light and die, or Rey has to convert to the dark side. After getting pigeon-holed into one of those 2 scenarios, they got out of it as best they could.)
- Essentially implied that Palpatine had been running things behind the scenes the whole time. Good, GOOD!
- Rey's parentage story was done as well as it could have been.
- I was afraid all the force ghosts of the past were going to appear and it would be really corny. Instead, just doing the voices (Qui-Gon, Yoda, Leia, Luke, and some others ... I THINK I heard Mace Windu...) was a good approach.
- All those star ships showing up at the end ... the diverse, motley crew ... that was a cool shot!
- Chewy's sadness/rage when he found out that Leia had died ... that one really got me! All of his original trio of friends are now dead!




Dislikes:
- Star Destroyers have to use a tracking beacon (one the ground or on a command ship) to get out of atmosphere? Really? A space shuttle can do it, but not a Star Destroyer. OK. This seems like the new "thermal exhaust port leading directly to the main reactor."
- Just jumped right into the acceptance that Palpatine is alive, no explanation. At least a LITTLE back story of how he didn't die, came back to life, was cloned, whatever would have been good.
- None of the lightsaber fights were epic. They were "OK"
- The "Knights of Ren" origin was never explained. We were just to accept it.
- On her deathbed, Leia arranged for Chewy to get a medal? OK, right. (over the top fan-service)
- The mushing of time and space was a little over-the-top. As well as the mushing of the real world with the ethereal. I don't mind force ghosts appearing, but just didn't like the whole "Kylo grabs Rey's necklace" thing.


Just plain questions:
- Star Destroyers can't use their shields in the atmosphere?
- Were the Carrie Fisher scenes filmed, or did they do a CGI face for her like they did for Tarkin in R1?
- Admiral Pride said "as I served you in the old wars" or something like that. What is he referring to?
- Han as a force ghost? Or was that just Ben having a vision?
- Who was in the "audience" in Palpatine's underground throne room? I assume the ghosts of past Sith, but that's just a guess.
- Was Hayden Christensen's voice one of the Jedi voices at the end? I couldn't tell.


Again, overall, I liked it 80-85%. It's not a special to me as the original Trilogy (4,5,6), but I liked it better than 8 by a lot, I'd put it on about the same level as 7. Better than the Prequels. Don't all you Negative Nancys out there bring me down!!!

 

[khardbored]

There was a little connection there with Rey being able to heal people and Kylo healing Rey at the end. I don't remember Jedi having healing powers in the past? Or am I completely forgetting times it has happened?

The the original Star Wars ("A New Hope"), After Luke gets bonked on the head by a Gaffi stick, Old Ben places his hand on Luke's head to "revive" him. Not sure if this is healing, or a lesser form like reviving from unconsciousness.

(BTW - does C3PO faint in that scene? Droids can faint?)

 

[CycloneWanderer]

Just plain questions:
- Star Destroyers can't use their shields in the atmosphere?
They should be able to - there is no non-atmosphere requirement so far as I know.
- Were the Carrie Fisher scenes filmed, or did they do a CGI face for her like they did for Tarkin in R1?
They used old film from TLJ (outtake film). It's why her lines didn't really match up well - they had to design dialogue around what was already there.
- Admiral Pride said "as I served you in the old wars" or something like that. What is he referring to?
Think it's empire-rebellion wars or potentially clone wars? Most likely the original trilogy.
- Han as a force ghost? Or was that just Ben having a vision?
That was just a hallucination. Han can't be a force ghost as he wasn't force sensitive.
- Who was in the "audience" in Palpatine's underground throne room? I assume the ghosts of past Sith, but that's just a guess.
I believe you are correct. Ghosts of sith past (which is strange since dark side shouldn't be able to be force ghosts as far as I know even in new canon).
- Was Hayden Christensen's voice one of the Jedi voices at the end? I couldn't tell.
Yes.


Again, overall, I liked it 80-85%. It's not a special to me as the original Trilogy (4,5,6), but I liked it better than 8 by a lot, I'd put it on about the same level as 7. Better than the Prequels. Don't all you Negative Nancys out there bring me down!!!