Movie poster from starwars.com
That said, I didn't go into the film with high expectations - rather the opposite in fact. From what I'd gathered from the spoiler-free commentary I'd seen, reviews were kind of mixed, which they had been for Last Jedi too. There seemed to be a weird kind of inversion though, where the people who loved Episode VIII seemed to hate this one and vice versa (obviously this isn't true for everyone... but it does seem to be the general trend).
After having seen the movie, my own opinion aligns with this as well. I didn't hate Last Jedi, but my overall feeling was that I found it unsatisfying and disappointing. And I didn't love The Rise of Skywalker, but I did have a good time with it.
This wasn't actually true from the start, as I didn't enjoy the first third or so of the film very much at all (I didn't check the exact time). It just felt like one fast-paced action sequence after another, with characters only being allowed to have the barest of dialogue to advance the plot. It kind of reminded me of bad fan fiction and actually left me feeling a bit bored if you can believe it, just because I couldn't really connect to anything that was going on.
Then there was one scene that genuinely surprised me though, and from that point on I started to get more engaged. (I think it also helped that around this time the film started to slow down a little in so far as it actually allowed the viewer to take in new scenes for more than a couple of moments.) I still found myself thinking "what the fuck is even going on, this makes no sense" a lot, but at the same time I actually cared about what was going on... which is a win I guess?
The climax is this bombastic CGI fest where the threats/powers just keep increasing and there's no real sense of place anymore as it's all just shadows and lasers and lightning (and to think people complained about the ending of Wonder Woman...) but I did have my eyes glued to the screen wondering how it would all end. The rest of the audience seemed to enjoy themselves as well, with some people even clapping at the end, and I left the movie theatre in a good mood.
With that said, as I'm sure you can tell from the way I phrased things above, I can totally understand people who didn't like this movie as well, because, well... it is a bit trashy in parts, similar to a mediocre fanfic or a low-grade EU novel. Just take the whole setup of Palpatine being back somehow, and having been behind everything somehow, and don't worry too much about everything that happened in the previous two films, just know that he suddenly has a giant fleet of Star Destroyers that all have planet-killing weapons and we've got to worry about that now. (I'm not sure I can even call that a spoiler, considering that most of this is revealed in the first five minutes of the film.) Or just look at the way certain characters that the writer didn't like are suddenly shunted into the background and behave completely differently (poor Rose)...
Anyway, this might sound weird but I'm kind of glad that the sequel trilogy is over now. Hopefully we can stop arguing about what true Star Wars fans should think of this or that on social media now. I still remember when Episode I came out and many people claimed that the idea of midichlorians had now ruined Star Wars and the Force forever! Yet where are we now? Ultimately, people just pick and choose the parts they like and drop anything they don't like by more or less pretending that it was never mentioned in the first place. I'm honestly curious to see what everyone will consider the memorable parts of the sequel trilogy in ten to twenty years from now.
I feel Episode IX had probably the biggest advantage of all three Sequel Trilogy films. As soon as you knew the premise (Palpatine's back, and it's the last film of the trilogy and the saga as a whole), it would be a very safe guess that this thing and that thing was going to happen before you saw the film, regardless of how it happened.
ReplyDeleteHowever, despite the relative strength of the premise one has to wonder what exactly this trilogy could have been like. I will never judge a film or film series against its potential (especially not one where even the original film could have been wildly different than what ended up being released), but it's just been a nagging thought in the back of my mind now that the trilogy is complete; "what would have happened if -?"
Inevitably, one factor would almost certainly have compromised matters regardless of what happened in prior films; the passing of Carrie Fisher. This unfortunately ended Leia's story before it could ever really get going, and I'm sure they did the best they could given the circumstances.
In spite of my various uncertainties, I still enjoyed a lot of moments throughout this trilogy. I feel the main characters were at their best in VII (with the exception of Kylo / Ben who I felt really shone in VIII), the visuals at their best in VIII, and the just-general-entertainment-value at its best in IX. I also thought this film had some of the better alien designs of the trilogy.
The lack of world-building and general lack of any real identification of locations certainly harmed this trilogy no end, however. Notably, when Hosnian Prime was destroyed, a lot of people initially thought it was Coruscant. Similarly, that forest Kylo was in at the start of IX? It's on Mustafar.
Also, the message referred to in the opening crawl of IX was only heard during a special in-game event in Fortnite. That's a whole new level of "what the hell".
But yeah, I'm interested in seeing how general opinion shifts on not only the Sequel Trilogy but also Disney as the 'owner' of Star Wars over the next decade. Mandalorian's apparently been getting rave reviews, so hopefully that indicates that in the years to come more people will be thinking more highly of new Star Wars media than there are currently.
I look forward to seeing what the films we'll get in the next decade will be like.
I feel Episode IX had probably the biggest advantage of all three Sequel Trilogy films.
DeleteI'm not sure what you describe was really that much of an advantage, unless you count the fact that it's probably served to keep some potential critics away who knew right away that they were going to hate it. Palpatine being back was kind of a "minimum willingness to suspend disbelief" check - are you OK to run with that? Because if you're not, you know you won't be having a good time.
one has to wonder what exactly this trilogy could have been like
I think regardless of whether one likes or dislike the sequel trilogy, it seems pretty obvious to me now that its biggest weaknesses have simply stemmed from a lack of coherent vision, with the two directors being at complete odds with each other a lot of the time. I do think it's fair to wonder what a trilogy directed in its entirety by Abrams or Johnson would have been like. At the very least it would have had more time to explore its themes in more depth and with more consistency without having to waste screen time on things like different directors playing tug of war with Rey's parentage.
I also thought this film had some of the better alien designs of the trilogy.
Fun fact: I actually found myself thinking early on that they were so many aliens in this one, at least Cal should be happy on that front! :D
The lack of world-building and general lack of any real identification of locations certainly harmed this trilogy no end
I know it's been a thing for the entire trilogy, but it was really, really weird in this one. Like, they travel to so many different locations but most of the time the viewer just has no idea where they are and we're clearly not meant to care either. The only planet name I could remember afterwards was Kijimi, precisely because there are at least a couple of lines of dialogue about why the group should go there and why Poe kind of doesn't want to. I couldn't even remember the name of the Sith world initially, despite of its name coming up a few times, simply because there is zero meaning attached to it beyond it being the place where Rey needs to go, and like I said in the main post it's just this weird mish-mash of CGI views with no weight to any of it.
I'm curious to see exactly what comes from this film in terms of future exposition in novels and the like.
DeleteExegol being this ancient and mysterious Sith planet has a fair bit of potential, potentially even as a planet in SWtOR, but it just kinda... existed in IX. It's a shame, really, because as the location for the big final battle of the main saga the audience just doesn't feel any connections to it. Endor had the Ewoks appealing to the "aww" factor and to kids, thus making people care for the inhabitants, and while Mustafar wasn't anything 'special' at least it had this dynamic look to it that we hadn't really seen before. Exegol, beyond the lightning, was just... uninteresting, landscape wise. Nothing about it ever really stood out to me. It was just this barren rocky plain and that's it.
I don't even recall seeing any mountains...
Similarly, I'm very interested to see the deleted scenes of this one. Apparently they had a few scenes with Rose and Leia that they had to cut because they "weren't happy" with how Leia was reconstructed in that scene or whatever, but I hope they kept the raw footage at least. All the same, I feel they should have given her additional scenes that saw her interacting with the main cast just in case the Leia scenes didn't work out, and so we're just left with Rose... existing.
With regards to Johnson's and Abrams' visions, this is why I'm interested in seeing Johnson's rumoured trilogy that's supposed to be coming out soon, just to get a taste of what his vision could have been for the sequels if he had had full control (although I'm fairly certain they would still have included the main cast from the original trilogy somewhere).
I agree with you here. The first half hour was such a rush job it kind of overwhelmed me with how it was trying to retcon some of the things The Last Jedi did. There was just so much happening in such a short amount of time, it was too much to process.
ReplyDeleteI also wondered why so many new characters had to be introduced, when you hardly get to see them. I'm still not sure what Dominic Monaghan was meant to do there and I felt sorry for the way Rose just got pushed aside.
At least one thing happened that I thought was completely unnecessary. At the end, with Rey and Kylo/Ben.
But overall there were plenty of scenes that I liked, so I liked most of it. As a standalone movie I thought it was ok. I enjoyed it, I was entertained. It was a sweet goodbye to Leia.
At least one thing happened that I thought was completely unnecessary. At the end, with Rey and Kylo/Ben.
DeleteI don't know if this is what you were thinking of but...
SPOILERS PAST HERE, SCROLL PAST IF YOU'RE STILL AVOIDING THEM!
In that last scene with the two of them I kept thinking "hug, don't kiss, just hug please"... and then they kissed, lol. It just felt kind of unnecessary. Or as Chris Stuckmann put it, if you do need to have them kiss, don't have him die right after.
Saw it today. I'm guessing that it was more of a "he's gonna die, might as well" thing than a romantic thing.
Delete(Hoping, as well. The Reylos are already a bit entitled.)
I enjoyed the last film a great deal, probably my favourite of the three. I agree the first part was too rushed, perhaps the Blu-Ray will have an extended version if we're lucky?
ReplyDeleteI had somehow missed the spoilers on Palpatine so that was a great surprise to have, also Rey's origin as well.
The ending was a bit overwrought (a whole fleet of hidden mega star destroyers seemed a bit OTT), but dramatically satisfying none the less. I actually liked how it felt like the Rey / Kylo situation could have gone several ways after the scenes on the crashed death star - the writing was less obvious than for most Hollywood films.
Perhaps the only personal pet peeve was the sudden introduction of Poe's old flame, Disney backtracking from the Internet hatestorm at any potential Poe-Finn romance angle no doubt :-/
Yeah, both Poe's old flame and Finn's new also-a-former-stormtrooper friend seemed to me like they could potentially be really fun and interesting characters, but as it was they felt kind of misplaced. As the anonymous commenter above noted, with everything that was going on there already wasn't enough time to give all the existing characters sufficient screen time! I mentioned poor Rose in the main post, but to be honest Poe and Finn also didn't really do very much compared to the major roles they had in episodes VII and VIII.
DeleteI suppose if nothing else it should give potential spin-off authors plenty of material to play around with in any books or comics set post-TRoS.