Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

[Rakaydos]

Rey was actually the only part of TFA I actually liked. Not enough to watch any of the more recent films, mind.



One of the things that drove SW into A Thing for me (beyond just being "the movies with starfighter combat in them") was the early EU (especially Zhan and TIE Fighter, but also Stackpole and the TTRPG), where everyone was drawing from everyone else and creating a consistent piece of world-building. The nucanon basically lost me whe they decided they weren't interested in doing that (either in continuing with what was before, nor building a new one), and if they weren't interested, I wasn't.

I'm suprised you say that- there's a lot of points of connection between the various nucanon works, but they tend to be more suble than "Luke Skywalker is here." (I once heard that in the 5 years after return of the jedi, novels have accounted for more than 5 years of his time "on screen")

The one I'm looking toward is the giant "Shadows of the Empire"-shaped hole that Solo suggests exists between Clone Wars Maul and Rebels Maul.

[Fyraltari]

He says they gave her all they know and that a thousand generations now live in her, which is a pretty good hint that she's received the accumulated Jedi knowledge. And she has it, but Luke didn't give it to her. As for Yoda, he chided Luke for thinking that Rey actually needed the books which is why he and Luke were supposed to be so sanguine about them seemingly being destroyed, so not the opposite at all.

The Yoda part has already been adressed but I wouldn't be surprised if part of the movie was Luke tutoring Rey as a ghost, with the implication that most of it happened duing the time-skip.

I don't think that's enough to demonstrate that it isn't a retcon attempt, given how often that sort of thing is used ironically, and given how the tone does shift back towards TFA rather than what you'd expect from TLJ.

A change in tone has nothing to do with a retcon, you still haven't made your case.

In TLJ, Finn and Poe had arcs that took up about as much screentime and were arguably more important to the plot than Rey's, or at least most of Rey's. In the trailer, they are reduced to about as many scenes as Lando gets, and less prominent ones.

This is ridiculous. This is a teaser, it's two minutes long. A short scene to illustrate the main theme of the movie (the protagonist has completed her transition to Jedi and is taking on Kylo Ren/the First Order) with a voice-over by the local wise figure (Luke) to reinforce that and a few quick shots of the different plotlines to give us a test of what to expect : Lando flying the Falcon, Kylo Ren rebuilding his helmet (ie cimenting his fall to the Dark Side), some fightiong, a new droid, Leia being sad, the whole gang on a quest to the wreckage of the Death Star and the laughter of sidious. Finn and Poe had about as much screentime as Ren, the main antagonist. The fact that the bloody protagonist was the main focus of the teaser is perfectly normal and to be expected it doesn't mean that the entire movie will only be about her.

This, then, shifts it -- back, likely -- to having a tight focus on Rey. But Rey is not an interesting enough character at this point to make that appealing except to die-hard Rey fans.

Seems to me that you have simply decided that anyone who, unlike you, find Rey a compeling character is a die-hard Rey fan, which sounds more like a way to dismiss their opinion than to have an honest conversation about wether she is (which is a completely subjective thing : either you are interested by what is being done with the character or you are not).

Well, there's no evidence that they lost the majority of their fleet in the actual movie, and it even implies that they are still a threat because no one will help the Resistance even after that happens.

Yeah, because everybody else is watching the movie and knows just as well as the audience what just happens. I'd be surprised if anybody besides the Resistance and the First Orderers (First Orderians? Primorderians?) alongside the high command are even aware that Starkiller Base was destroyed.

As for the Alliance, they had at least some means of creating a fleet -- I dislike Rogue One's semi-retcon that they lost all their ships in that space battle they one -- AND there were three years between ANH and TESB AND it was clear that the Alliance had political and financial resources that the Resistance doesn't seem to have access to. So not the same thing at all.

They have the same means as the Rebellion did, a galaxy full of people who don't want to live under space Nazi Germany and the credentials of having dealt a serious blow to the bad guys as well as having been in this fight longer than naybody else. Plus a Jedi and a couple of reknown political figures. They are the natural group for the inevitable opposition to the FO to coalesce around which is why Snoke went to so much trouble trying and failing to kill them all before that could happen.

In fact, any attempt to say that they DID have that again retcons and kills the tone of TLJ, which is that it's mostly hopeless and that that's all they have left.

TLJ ends with luke stating to Kylo Ren that the war has just begun, that he won't be the last Jedi and that the Rebellion is reborn, followed by a shot of slave kids telling the legend of Luke Skywalker to each other, one of whom is force sensitive and proudly wearing the insigna of the Resisstance. And you got "hopeless and that that's all they have left" from that? How?

Maybe some of those people who wouldn't help the Resistance on Crait changed their minds since then. Maybe some of those people were inspired by the legend of Luke Skywalker's last stand, which we saw spreading across the galaxy at the end of TLJ, to take a stand themselves. Doesn't seem like a retcon is necessary.

Exactly.

I liked the symetric war of the pt. Either returning to that, or playing a 'Imperials as terrorists' game (the inverse of ot/st) wouldve been good.

Yeah, but there's no point in wondering about what-could-have-beens. They are not going to siwtch stories between films, that would be extremely weird and confusing.

Some degree of overriding of TLJ was inevitable, because the position in which TLJ left the story was wholly incompatible to finishing the overall story in a single movie. Whatever the merits of TLJ (it's not worth re-litigating that now) the status quo provided in its final scenes absolutely requires a substantial amount of modification in order to set up a culmination to just this trilogy, never mind the entire nine movie story, in one film. Possibly some measure of timeskip is being deployed, it's not clear. This trailer shows they haven't deliberately aged up Rey, but that's all, there could easily be as much as five years in between the two films.

Unfortunately, whatever solution is utilized to get the Resistance and Empire in a position to have some kind of decisive battle, it's going to require some significant exposition, and the current experience of the ST has been one of a great gaping void where essential exposition should be. I mean, just in this very thread we have people discussing the Republic's post-Endor demilitarization, a plot point that is drawn entirely from the supplementary materials and is never presented in the films at all.

Exposition is precisely what the opening crawl is for. I mean:

YET AGAIN THE GALAXY IS ENGULFED IN THE FLAMES OF WAR. AS THE VILE FIRST ORDER ATTEMPTS TO SOLIDY ITS GRIP OVER THE GALAXY, THE VARIOUS FREE SYSTEMS GATHER AROUND THE HEROIC RESISTANCE, LEAD BY GENERAL LEIA ORGANA.

MEANWHILE, KYLO REN, THE YOUNG SUPREME LEADER OF THE FIRST ORDER STRUGGLES TO ASSERT HIS AUTHORITY OVER AN INCREASINGLY DISTRUTFUL MILITARY.

FAR FROM HIM THE JEDI KNIGHT, REY EMBARKS ON A QUEST UPON WHICH THE FATE OF THE GALAXY MAY VERY WELL REST...

or some such.

This happens for a few reasons:

1. J.J. Abrams wanted to essentially reboot the first movie and isn't a details guy. He put up a setup and told Pablo Hidalgo and the Story Group to worry about the details. Keep in mind no details for the rest of the trilogy were set in stone at that point, no details for any substantial tie-ins were made, and everything was working back from the assumption the republic could be wiped out in one go.

2. J.J. Abrams doesn't play nice with others. Even after all of that he made a lot of edits to TFA without actually telling Lucasfilm he was doing it. Hidalgo said that he didn't even know about the opening crawl and how the republic was involved until he saw the film in the theaters because Abrams changed it all at the last minute, long after all the surrounding material had gone to print.

3. Rian Johnson also doesn't play nice with others. He more or less scrapped the notes both Abrams and Lucas had for 8 and 9 and did his own thing. Meaning even when a plan was in place it really wasn't and he refused to leave any real room to develop or co-ordinate with the existing plan.

4. The design team at Lucasfilm is very simple and straightforward. They insisted that every new design be bigger than the old ones. So new Star Destroyers are twice the size of old ones and the ones above that are several times bigger and the biggest ship is just casually in spitting range of the Death Stars size. By contrast even the smaller resistance ships are each individually bigger than their rebel equivalents to the point where the Raddus could probably solo any Imperial ship besides an SSD. The relative scale as a result hasn't really changed but it makes writing about it a headache to say the least.

5. The guys that should be looped in to every meeting really aren't. Dave Filoni is probably the most important director Lucasfilm has, above even Abrams just by raw volume of crap he's attached to, and he's in a lot of meetings but he very obviously is working off old concepts and piecing together stuff he shouldn't have to. At one point he was running four different animated series at once while also having to individually animate and storyboard segments by hand. There needs to be a much larger team of directors and talent at the top tier who can co-ordinate but Lucasfilm has notoriously been hemmoraging that kind of personnel since the buyout and been unable to attract a lot of new ones.

I'm seriously dispointed by Disney. I knew they were a soulless money grabbing machine, but I had thought they'd be more competent about it. Oh well.

Yeah, that's one of my complaints about TLJ. It left things so that there's no sensible way the last movie can tie things up in one movie. Given, though, how successful as a franchise Star Wars is, I would have simply ditched that idea and promised another trilogy following up on where this one ends to tie things up, leaving this trilogy ending at the point where Star Wars began: the Resistance has managed to rebuild enough to win a battle, and now the fight for the galaxy is heating up.

Instead, they seem to be trying to finish that off regardless. You can't do that sensibly without undoing TLJ or at least adding things that TLJ didn't mention or highlight, none of which will work if the trilogy is taken as one story. Even adding years in-between will only make us wonder why we weren't shown all the interesting things that went into the rebuilding of the Resistance.

You mean like how everybody who saw Return of the Jedi and Empire Strikes Back wondered why they weren't shown all the interesting things that went into the rebuilding of the Rebellion? Time-skips and extended universes exist for a reason, you know.

Since we didn't know that at the time, this also meant he was trolling THE AUDIENCE, and Yoda himself never reveals that that is what he meant there. In-universe, this makes Yoda a jerk who deliberately allowed Luke to take the wrong message from what he said and, in fact, even deliberately phrased it that way to cause that, as he knew what Luke was thinking there.

The message Yoda was trying to teach Luke, was that failure is the greatest teacher and that Luke's moment of weakness did not mean the end of everything or that the Jedi had no value and it worked. I don't see a problem with that. Or with Yoda using "Jedi truths" when talking to Luke, he spent most of the OT doing that, why stop now?

From the audience's perspective, it's the movie directly lying to us to indirectly contradict a message that it directly states. Plus, her having the books is indeed consistent with Yoda saying that she doesn't really need them.

He never says that.

And, on top of that, it still makes the line that they gave her all they could wrong, because they didn't actually give it to her. She stole it.

Anyway, the implication from TLJ is that the books and lore aren't as important as Luke thought they were, which is consistent with how Yoda acted in TESB. The voiceover in the trailer ignores that completely.

Rewatching the video I just linked Yoda tells him to pass on "what [he has] learnt : strength, mastery, but weakness, folly, failure, also". And he did do that, he passed on the last three on the island and the first two on Crait.

This wouldn't help. We'd still have TLJ ending with a dire situation only to have a semi-random circumstance reset the balance of power. After all, there's no one in the FO who could spawn a Resistance-friendly coup on the basis of rejecting the old-style Imperial/Sith treachery, and so it would just be an internal power struggle, which wouldn't be that interesting in and of itself, and you'd need more time than one movie to develop in an interesting way (the Resistance cultivating it, for example). In my view of how TFA should have been done, I would have made Thrawn be responsible for their success and then defect due to disdain for the system-killing device, which then would have left him as a character that could have rallied some of the FO to the side of the Resistance without having to introduce a new character, and it STILL would have seemed a bit too easy given how we left TLJ.

I disagree, Ren and Hux have been butting heads for two movies and even at the end of TLJ we still see the FO drivers waiting for Hux's confirmation ater Ren's direct oder to fire. Hux betraying Ren wouldn't be surprising. Who needs a new character?

As I said above, there's no good way to end it to the level of RotJ in this last movie given where they started from. The end of TESB, for example, left them with a viable fleet. Here, they don't even have that. Building that up definitely will require work on their part, but there's no time to do that in one movie AND have them use it successfully without it coming across as contrived in order to end it in this trilogy.

They didn't have a fleet at the end of A New Hope, either, it was left to the watcher to infer that destroying the Death Star gained them support. Same there, I would guess.

So the majority of the audience are die-hard Rey fans? Because that IS a wild theory [grin].

Unless you're a die-hard Rey fan, you aren't going to look at a trailer as focused on Rey as this one is and think "Oooh, there's lots of Rey in this movie, I've gotta go see it!" You're going to want to know things about the plot and the other characters, because Rey, on her own, just isn't that interesting a character so that you just want to see her do stuff on screen. The trailer isn't even advertising her story, but is just advertising HER. Again, other than die-hard Rey fans, seeing Rey in that prominent a position isn't going to get them that excited for the movie.

So what does your theory say that I'm wrong or in the minority about?

It's not a trailer, it's a teaser, there is a difference. It is not ther to showcase the plot. And Star Wars plots have always been in service to the charcater storie, the charcater stories have never been influence by the plot.

[Blackhawk748]

I disagree, Ren and Hux have been butting heads for two movies and even at the end of TLJ we still see the FO drivers waiting for Hux's confirmation ater Ren's direct oder to fire. Hux betraying Ren wouldn't be surprising. Who needs a new character?

Because they spent the entirety of TLJ making Hux the but of nearly every single joke and as such he isn't terribly threatening? Hell, even in TFA where he's a zealous nut job he's only threatening because he has the giant super weapon. The man isn't terribly competent, cunning, or just full of enough raw viciousness to be a good villain.

They didn't have a fleet at the end of A New Hope, either, it was left to the watcher to infer that destroying the Death Star gained them support. Same there, I would guess.

The huge difference here is that in A New Hope their 'fleet' is like two squadrons of snub fighters, not a Capital Ship and its escorts. Snubfighters are rather easy to replace, a Capital group... not so much. On top of that the Sequeal Trilogy's extra info has gone out of its way to showcase that only the Resistance is fighting the FO and that noone else can. So where the hell did all of these people come from and how are they fighting Capital Ships that have five times the firepower of an Imperial II Star Destroyer, with none of the latter's weaknesses?

[Fyraltari]

Because they spent the entirety of TLJ making Hux the but of nearly every single joke and as such he isn't terribly threatening? Hell, even in TFA where he's a zealous nut job he's only threatening because he has the giant super weapon. The man isn't terribly competent, cunning, or just full of enough raw viciousness to be a good villain.

He was treated as threatening in TFA (that hitler speech) he just wasn’t in focus much, he was treated comedically in TLJ but that hardly makes it impossible for him to be serious in this. Kylo Ren is the main villain anyway. Hux doesn’t need to be particularly threatening to betray him comes the climax unwittingly giving the Resistance the opening they need or something along these lines.

The huge difference here is that in A New Hope their 'fleet' is like two squadrons of snub fighters, not a Capital Ship and its escorts. Snubfighters are rather easy to replace, a Capital group... not so much.

What? Because they only lost fighters means that them suddenly having a full fleet later on with is fine but since the Resistance lost capital ships they can never have some again? How does that work? The Rebellion gained a fleet they didn’t have between IV and V, why couldn’t the Resistance do the same between VIII and IX?

On top of that the Sequeal Trilogy's extra info has gone out of its way to showcase that only the Resistance is fighting the FO and that noone else can.

No-one does, not no-one can. The First Order is powerful but not as much as the Empire who never conquered the Galaxy but is what the Republic evolved into. All the Resistance needs to do to have an army is unite all the systems that want to fight the First Order. The New Republic could have done that, so the FO blew their government up, but being the group that has been fighting the FO for six years, blew up Starkiller and cleaved the Supremacy into is lead by Leia and has a Jedi the Resistance can as well.

So where the hell did all of these people come from and how are they fighting Capital Ships that have five times the firepower of an Imperial II Star Destroyer, with none of the latter's weaknesses?

Mon Calamari? Geonosis? Coruscant? Corellia? Naboo? Literally all over the Galaxy, just like all the people who joined the Alliance and fought Capital ships that had however many times the firepower of Republican Star Destroyers and none of their weaknesses. I mean the Raddus was clearly an updated Mon Cal Star Destroyer.

[Aotrs Commander]

I'm suprised you say that- there's a lot of points of connection between the various nucanon works, but they tend to be more suble than "Luke Skywalker is here." (I once heard that in the 5 years after return of the jedi, novels have accounted for more than 5 years of his time "on screen")

But they started it off with a tired reset to "rebels verses the Empire" to rehash the same thing as they did before (rather than explore new territory) and from the sounds of what Jayngfet was saying, it's gone downhill from there.

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and they basically lost me there from the get-go.

[Blackhawk748]

Mon Calamari? Geonosis? Coruscant? Corellia? Naboo? Literally all over the Galaxy, just like all the people who joined the Alliance and fought Capital ships that had however many times the firepower of Republican Star Destroyers and none of their weaknesses. I mean the Raddus was clearly an updated Mon Cal Star Destroyer.

A Mon Cal Cruiser has comparable firepower to the of an Imp II SD, the advantage the Imp IIs have is that they double as carriers while the Mon Cals don't. This is evened out by the fact that Mon Cal Cruisers have more advanced shielding systems than an Imp II. On top of this, the ships are of comparable size so the fight is far more equal.

Meanwhile, while the MC-85 (the Raddus) is about the same size as a Resurgent, the thing is comically undergunned for a 3.4km long ship. It has 18 heavy turbolasers, 18 heavy ion cannons, 12 point defence cannons and 8 proton torpedo launchers. Those are individual guns, not batteried, just guns. To compare, the Nebulon B Frigate has 12 Turbolaser and 12 laser cannons as well as proton torpedo launchers. Its also only 300 meters long. To reitterate, the MC-85, a ship 10 times larger than a Nebulon B, has scarcely a third more firepower.

To compare it to its FO counterpart is laughable. Yes it has very nice shields and has four squadrons on board compared to a Resurgent's two, but when you are outgunned 41:1 none of that matters. Its shields would have to be more powerful by such a ridiculous magnitude to make up a difference of that kind that it would break any level of believability. And the MC-85 was the Republic Navy's standard ship of the line.

How, in the name of Thrawn's bright blue *** was the New Republic ever a threat to the FO with a firepower discrepency of this kind? They would have to outnumber the FO fleet by five or six to one in order to start making up this kind of deficit, yet they reduced their military by 90%? They were doomed even before we bring Starkiller Base or the Supremacy Factory Ship into account.

[napoleon_in_rag]

People need to remember that decisions for the new movies are made by committee with a changing membership. There is no overarching vision just what the director du jour or Disney thinks is profitable. So the FO fleet might have been larger and then shrunk and is now large again. The crew count of a Resurgent Star Destroyer may change or is decided by whoever wrote the Wiki, not by Abrams, Kennedy, or Johnson. No one thinks of the implications of a decision across all three movies of the trilogy, much less the entire series. Its all decisions made on the fly as they make each individual movie.

[Daimbert]

Yes, Yoda (and by extension Rian Johnson) was trolling the audience as well. Are you really surprised? That's all the movie did, set up expectations (Rey doesn't need anything from the burning tree) only to subvert them (Psyke! You thought I meant she didn't need these dusty old books, when I actually meant she had stolen them and they didn't burn along with the tree. Gotcha!)

I agree that the line that they gave her all they could is wrong. It was inevitable though, TLJ didn't leave much to work with it and retconning it is pretty much the only choice.

I think we're agreeing here. I agree that Johnson was trolling the audience and that abandoning that was pretty much the right idea. I'm mostly pointing out the retcons and/or shifts in tone, not disagreeing with them.

The Yoda part has already been adressed but I wouldn't be surprised if part of the movie was Luke tutoring Rey as a ghost, with the implication that most of it happened duing the time-skip.

Assuming there IS a time skip, of course. My impression was that there was one between TFA and TLJ as well and was very disappointed when there WASN'T one, even of a couple of months.

I agree that there might be her training with Luke as a Force Ghost, but this is the sort of thing I'm talking about (whether or not it really counts as a retcon): that training was supposed to happen, following the original narrative, with Luke in TLJ, it didn't happen, and now they have to scramble to get things into the situation they need them to be in to do what, at least, Abrams originally wanted this film to do.

A change in tone has nothing to do with a retcon, you still haven't made your case.

I've listed a number of things that are sharp turns from what TLJ at least led us to believe and a number of tone shifts that seem to be pretty much trying to give the impression that they aren't going to do what TLJ did or carry on that tone/narrative. This was in reply to you seemingly attempting to refute that by arguing that the breathing at the start of the teaser was a callback to TLJ. Given that that is quite reasonably being used ironically to telegraph the subversions, that doesn't count as an argument against anything else I've said.

This is ridiculous. This is a teaser, it's two minutes long. A short scene to illustrate the main theme of the movie (the protagonist has completed her transition to Jedi and is taking on Kylo Ren/the First Order)

That "short scene" takes up one minute is entirely a Rey scene AND a scene that focuses on her awesome abilities rather than anything about her character or her transition to a Jedi, as we already know that she can do amazing things with the Force. Again, if you are a big fan of Rey that will interest you, but if you aren't that's not really going to do much for you.

The fact that the bloody protagonist was the main focus of the teaser is perfectly normal and to be expected it doesn't mean that the entire movie will only be about her.

I'm actually not claiming that. I'm claiming that teasers are there to generate excitement, but that much focus on Rey will not generate excitement in anyone who isn't that big a fan of Rey. They wanted to see other things that don't happen because that scene takes up half the teaser. There ARE other things in there that could do it -- the Luke voiceover, Lando, the Emperor laughing -- but in general it looks like they're putting their excitement eggs in the Rey basket and my comment -- that no one has really addressed -- is that she isn't an interesting enough character to most fans for that to work. To make it more explicit, they should have spent less time on that scene and more time showing the other protagonists, characters, and situations. I'm not saying leave Rey out, but focusing the trailer so strongly on her requires people to care more about her than I think most people who might go to see the movie do.

Seems to me that you have simply decided that anyone who, unlike you, find Rey a compeling character is a die-hard Rey fan, which sounds more like a way to dismiss their opinion than to have an honest conversation about wether she is (which is a completely subjective thing : either you are interested by what is being done with the character or you are not).

Well, if you find her compelling enough that her presence doing cool things in a teaser is enough to get you excited about the movie, then you're pretty much a die-hard Rey fan by definition [grin]. But I think the issue is that it seems that you think that I'm using that as a criticism of those fans or points. I'm not (although, to be fair, there's enough people who use it as a negative that I probably should have stuck with my original comment that didn't mention "die-hard"). I'm just saying that fans who don't like Rey that much and/or like other things better are going to find the teaser disappointing, and that fans who like Rey that much are in the minority because as a character herself she isn't that interesting. For the most part, those who really like her -- and, to be fair, really DISLIKE her -- are going to feel that way for subjective reasons, that for some reason she clicks with them. But that's probably not and doesn't seem to be the majority. And few if any have even tried to address that, making honest conversation around that difficult, wouldn't you say?

Yeah, because everybody else is watching the movie and knows just as well as the audience what just happens. I'd be surprised if anybody besides the Resistance and the First Orderers (First Orderians? Primorderians?) alongside the high command are even aware that Starkiller Base was destroyed.

This is a possibility, and they might use that ... but again this goes against how TLJ presented it. If this is what TLJ wanted us to think possible, they should have hinted at that in the movie by having someone suggest it even if the others reacted glumly to it as if it's not that likely. But the impression is that their allies were not willing to intervene at any point, even to pick them up. If this movie takes your move, it will again seem far too quick and easy given how TLJ ended. At the end of TLJ, the impression is that there is a lot of work to do to rebuild the Resistance. All of that work miraculously going way would work to allow them to complete it in this movie but will be jarring if anyone wants to watch the entire trilogy.

That's my point here: TLJ left it so that there's no way to credibly end the arc at the end of the trilogy in victory without upending TLJ. And whether you call that a retcon or not, the tone shift will indeed matter.

They have the same means as the Rebellion did, a galaxy full of people who don't want to live under space Nazi Germany and the credentials of having dealt a serious blow to the bad guys as well as having been in this fight longer than naybody else. Plus a Jedi and a couple of reknown political figures. They are the natural group for the inevitable opposition to the FO to coalesce around which is why Snoke went to so much trouble trying and failing to kill them all before that could happen.

But TLJ sets those people up as no longer having any military presence to add to the struggle and that the political figures couldn't even convince their purported allies to simply come and pick them up when they believed they had dodged the FO fleet. I agree with you that they can and are the natural ones to rebuild the Resistance and draw in new allies. But from this starting point they simply can't build it up quickly enough to end the trilogy in the same manner as RotJ ended the OT. And a time skip to do so will leave the interesting alliance building out of the movie and seem simply like a contrived way to return to a status quo that TLJ overturned.

TLJ ends with luke stating to Kylo Ren that the war has just begun, that he won't be the last Jedi and that the Rebellion is reborn, followed by a shot of slave kids telling the legend of Luke Skywalker to each other, one of whom is force sensitive and proudly wearing the insigna of the Resisstance. And you got "hopeless and that that's all they have left" from that? How?

There is hope that the Resistance can rise again, but for now it's devastated and incapable of meaningfully opposing the FO. Yes, the theme is that they aren't finished, and I'm not suggesting that. I'm suggesting that, for now, the FO has won and will dominate the galaxy. Essentially, we're at the end of RotS, not TESB.

You mean like how everybody who saw Return of the Jedi and Empire Strikes Back wondered why they weren't shown all the interesting things that went into the rebuilding of the Rebellion? Time-skips and extended universes exist for a reason, you know.

The Rebellion had a fleet at the end of TESB, and there wasn't really any significant rebuilding in that time skip because, as the TESB opening crawl establishes things aren't going well for them. And again the end of TESB establishes that they were in far better shape going into the endgame of RotJ than the Resistance is going into the purported endgame of this movie. To build up from where they are to where they are now IS interesting, involving them having to actually win battles outright and convince the others to go along with them. You can put that in supplemental material on the argument that Star Wars movie fans are less interesting in those sorts of things, but that still leaves you needing to explain how it happened. None of that was necessary for the build-up between Star Wars and RotJ. Especially since until Rogue One came out the overall impression was that their victory in the crawl left their fleet at least somewhat intact. The only thing in ANH that belies that is the ships not being at The Battle of Yavin, but that's easily explained -- and I think one EU source did so explicitly -- by saying that once they realized that the Imperial fleet wasn't coming and that the Death Star was impervious to capital ships they sent them away. So we didn't really question where they got the fleet from because we assumed they started with one and then added as appropriate. The Resistance, however, is starting from scratch and yet needs to be able to build a big enough fleet to take on the FO in a climactic battle. That's hard to do starting from TLJ without making it contrived.

The message Yoda was trying to teach Luke, was that failure is the greatest teacher and that Luke's moment of weakness did not mean the end of everything or that the Jedi had no value and it worked. I don't see a problem with that. Or with Yoda using "Jedi truths" when talking to Luke, he spent most of the OT doing that, why stop now?

He would be deliberately letting Luke believe that the texts weren't important and that Rey had what she needed without being able to rely on their wisdom. That strongly suggests that that's the point he's trying to get across. While he COULD do that to teach that lesson to Luke, that wouldn't align with his comment simply implying that she already had the books. So we'd have to drop that interpretation, but then it again implies that the accumulated wisdom wasn't that important, but the teaser voiceover implies that it was important.

He never says that.

Well, I wasn't quoting him, you know [grin]. But he does flat-out say that there was nothing in those books that Rey didn't already have inside her. That doesn't work if all he meant was that she had the books with her, but the voiceover here implies that the teachings WERE important. YES, they can explain that with Luke giving training as a Force Ghost, but again all that will do is remind us that that's what he was supposed to be doing in TLJ and refused to do.

I disagree, Ren and Hux have been butting heads for two movies and even at the end of TLJ we still see the FO drivers waiting for Hux's confirmation ater Ren's direct oder to fire. Hux betraying Ren wouldn't be surprising. Who needs a new character?

As I said, that would be an internal power struggle, not a Resistance-friendly coup. In those situations, the Resistance would be taking advantage of that to put pressure on the one who is in charge -- Ren, I suppose? -- but not only will neither of them join with the Resistance the Resistance won't have them. Using Ren's betrayal and Luke's example as a push for someone to rebel in a way that aligns with the Resistance would work better if you need to do it in a hurry, but there is no character who can do that in the FO or that we even think could rally FO-loyal forces against them. So, as I stated, that sort of move won't help here.

They didn't have a fleet at the end of A New Hope, either, it was left to the watcher to infer that destroying the Death Star gained them support. Same there, I would guess.

As I already noted, before Rogue One the impression was that they HAD a fleet after ANH: the ones that won that first battle. So no one was puzzled with its appearance in TESB, and given the crawl of TESB there was even an impression that it had shrunk instead of grown in the interim (that's why it fled outside the galaxy, after all). Here, we know they don't have one. Destroying the world killing device would garner support, but having the rest of their military wiped out would cost them support and a leadership position. So there's a lot to explain given where TLJ ended.

And, again, that's my main point: trying to finish the trilogy a la RotJ forces a shift where you'll be able to hear the gears grind moving from TLJ to this one. My argument is that it would have been better to convert this movie into a RotS or pre-ANH type movie and build another trilogy to end with their RotJ moment.

It's not a trailer, it's a teaser, there is a difference. It is not ther to showcase the plot. And Star Wars plots have always been in service to the charcater storie, the charcater stories have never been influence by the plot.

It's there to generate excitement for the movie, and those who aren't big Rey fans will find very little in this teaser to excite them because of the focus it puts on Rey, and not even on Rey as a character but Rey as someone who does cool Jedi things.

[Mechalich]

I'm actually not claiming that. I'm claiming that teasers are there to generate excitement, but that much focus on Rey will not generate excitement in anyone who isn't that big a fan of Rey. They wanted to see other things that don't happen because that scene takes up half the teaser. There ARE other things in there that could do it -- the Luke voiceover, Lando, the Emperor laughing -- but in general it looks like they're putting their excitement eggs in the Rey basket and my comment -- that no one has really addressed -- is that she isn't an interesting enough character to most fans for that to work. To make it more explicit, they should have spent less time on that scene and more time showing the other protagonists, characters, and situations. I'm not saying leave Rey out, but focusing the trailer so strongly on her requires people to care more about her than I think most people who might go to see the movie do.

Well, it's not really like they have anyone else to focus on. TLJ pruned the character roster down immensely. The entire good guy side has six people to work with, and out of those, Rey's pretty much the only one capable of carrying the focus. I mean let's break it down:

Chewie: He's great, but he's a sidekick, always has been, always will be, also he can't speak or use subtitles, which is a barrier to any sort of major utilization.
Finn: His arc concluded in TLJ and he was supposed to die in a heroic sacrifice at the conclusion of the film. That got subverted, which, fine, whatever, but he's now extraneous.
Leia: She's awesome, but represents the wrong generation and, of course, Carrie Fisher is sadly no longer with us so she can't exactly be a centerpiece.
Poe: Okay, they could have spent more time on Poe. TLJ tried to set him up as the next leader of the Resistance and a greater Poe role is possible, but his portrayal in TLJ was so all over the place that it didn't leave him as an inspiring protagonist either.
Rose: Not an in-depth character and also attached almost completely to the parts of TLJ everybody didn't like even if they loved the film. Notice that she doesn't appear in this trailer at all, which I think was a wise choice.
Rey: She's the one who's left, the Jedi (or I guess the Skywalker) with a destiny to fulfill and a galaxy to save. She's also the only resistance character who bypassed the great chase debacle of TLJ and didn't get any of that on her. Uninteresting or not, she's the one that has to be chosen by default if nothing else.

By the way, it's not like things are any better on the villain side. General Hux is a mess and Domhnall Gleason just isn't a particularly threatening Space Nazi and never has been (he's a fine actor, he was just miscast), and Kylo Ren is...I honestly don't know what he's doing at this point. His character has plenty to do, it's just completely unclear what any of it is. Given that context, I totally understand why Abrams appears to be pulling Palpatine back from beyond the grave, his villainous pool is too depleted (because someone let Snoke die in movie two out of three) to avoid it.

[Psyren]

This wouldn't help. We'd still have TLJ ending with a dire situation only to have a semi-random circumstance reset the balance of power. After all, there's no one in the FO who could spawn a Resistance-friendly coup on the basis of rejecting the old-style Imperial/Sith treachery, and so it would just be an internal power struggle, which wouldn't be that interesting in and of itself, and you'd need more time than one movie to develop in an interesting way (the Resistance cultivating it, for example). In my view of how TFA should have been done, I would have made Thrawn be responsible for their success and then defect due to disdain for the system-killing device, which then would have left him as a character that could have rallied some of the FO to the side of the Resistance without having to introduce a new character, and it STILL would have seemed a bit too easy given how we left TLJ.

They've established plenty actually:

1) Kylo is not well-liked within the FO. (He literally had to choke them in line to finalize his succession.)
2) Kylo is an iconoclast who cares much more about breaking with the Empire's traditions than ensuring cushy positions of power for his generals.
3) Kylo is an impetuous child when things don't go his way.

All those things together mean they have plenty of reason to be fractious.

So what does your theory say that I'm wrong or in the minority about?

That Rey is not an interesting character. Certainly you declaring it to be so on an internet forum means nothing.

Doubtful. I think it's only a minority that hate her but the overhelming majority of people Ive met, casual and hardcore both , seem to not care for her.

Whereas I doubt that "people you've met" constitute a meaningful sample of both Star Wars fans or movie audiences in general.

[Peelee]

People need to remember that decisions for the new movies are made by committee with a changing membership. There is no overarching vision just what the director du jour or Disney thinks is profitable..

Source?

So what does your theory say that I'm wrong or in the minority about?

That Rey is not an interesting character.

Frankly, I'm at a loss as to how you could have possibly been referring to anything else when you opened Daimbert to the possibility of being wrong.

[Jayngfet]

People need to remember that decisions for the new movies are made by committee with a changing membership. There is no overarching vision just what the director du jour or Disney thinks is profitable. So the FO fleet might have been larger and then shrunk and is now large again. The crew count of a Resurgent Star Destroyer may change or is decided by whoever wrote the Wiki, not by Abrams, Kennedy, or Johnson. No one thinks of the implications of a decision across all three movies of the trilogy, much less the entire series. Its all decisions made on the fly as they make each individual movie.

This isn't true. There is very much a committee in the form of the Lucasfilm Story Group who's explicit job is to make sure the details stay consistent and their members also personally write tie-in databooks. They're credited on every work and every failure to keep dates and numbers lined up is something they've taken personal responsibility for. There is a committee. We know who's on it. We have the work they're credited for. We know what powers they have, at least in theory. They have members giving fairly consistent interviews.

The literal only person who consistently disregards them is Abrams. They've been notably happy with literally everyone else and gone up to bat for every film but TFA as a result.

[Malphegor]

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My guess is that Kylo is piloting it. They aren't fighting, he's training her.

I hope so. Because that'd be funny as hell.

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"Rey, I am going to train you the same way Luke trained me."

"Ooh, are we going to start with the Force control stuff?"

"No." <starts engine>

"What."

"IF YOU CAN DODGE A SPACESHIP, YOU CAN DODGE A BALL!"

If old Sheev Palpatine is back then

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They might be actually doing something with Darth Plagieus and the old EU's Palpatine having semi-immortality maybe?

[Daimbert]

Well, it's not really like they have anyone else to focus on. TLJ pruned the character roster down immensely. The entire good guy side has six people to work with, and out of those, Rey's pretty much the only one capable of carrying the focus.

I think it would have been better to simply focus on the overall action than that much on Rey. Again, most people are not going to be excited to see the movie just to see Rey do marginally cool but inexplicable and contrived things.

Poe: Okay, they could have spent more time on Poe. TLJ tried to set him up as the next leader of the Resistance and a greater Poe role is possible, but his portrayal in TLJ was so all over the place that it didn't leave him as an inspiring protagonist either.

Poe being backgrounded is just another example of how this movie seems to be returning to the TFA model and moving away from the TLJ model. He was Wedge in TFA but in TLJ was someone much more important.

By the way, it's not like things are any better on the villain side. General Hux is a mess and Domhnall Gleason just isn't a particularly threatening Space Nazi and never has been (he's a fine actor, he was just miscast), and Kylo Ren is...I honestly don't know what he's doing at this point. His character has plenty to do, it's just completely unclear what any of it is. Given that context, I totally understand why Abrams appears to be pulling Palpatine back from beyond the grave, his villainous pool is too depleted (because someone let Snoke die in movie two out of three) to avoid it.

Yeah, they really messed up the villains. Ren was never as intimidating as he needed to be, and any replacements they had never measured up. There are interesting things they could do with Palpatine if a) they had set things up in previous movies and b) could be trusted to do it properly, which given both TFA and TLJ they can't.

All those things together mean they have plenty of reason to be fractious.

Yes, but as I said none of the lead characters can lead a Resistance-friendly faction, so it's just an internal power struggle that at best would weaken the FO enough to allow for an organized force to have a chance against them. A force that the Resistance doesn't HAVE at the end of TLJ. So it would still be contrived.

That was the point of my Thrawn example: if he was established as being at least potentially Resistance-friendly or aligned early on -- ie in previous movies as he was in my alternate version -- then he could lead a coup and provide the Resistance FO forces to set up the final conflict. Since no character was built to do that in the previous movies, attempts to use splintering of the FO to make ending it here credible will come across as contrived.

That Rey is not an interesting character. Certainly you declaring it to be so on an internet forum means nothing.

It means exactly as much as you asserting the opposite does.

There are two main ways to approach it here, from the teaser:

1) Rey's one "cool" move gets the bulk of the attention and is the centrepiece of the teaser. That's all she does, though, so there's no hint of character development or character arc or story. So it would appeal to people who like Rey enough that just seeing her do "cool" and dramatic things will get them excited. As I said, that relies on most fans really liking her and I don't think most fans do. Even ones like me who are merely neutral on her will at best find that dull and at worst pandering.

2) We can ask what is interesting about her character. The big mystery from TFA was seemingly resolved in the most uninteresting way possible in TLJ, as her parents are irrelevant and simply abandoned her for no plot or character related reason. TLJ and the teaser implies that Rey is trained enough to be a Jedi. Rey has already faced and rejected joining Kylo Ren. There are not real romantic interests to speak off. The only thing that might draw some interest is her propensity for the Dark Side but the movies have been playing that as being normal and proper even from TFA. What is there about her character that can draw interest? For Luke, we had the relationship with Vader as his father, and that STILL wasn't the entire focus of RotJ and his character wasn't the sole focus of the movie. This teaser implies otherwise with nothing to work with.

So I think there's plenty of reason to think that Rey's character is not interesting enough to most fans so that the strong focus on her in this teaser will excite them, which was my point.

Frankly, I'm at a loss as to how you could have possibly been referring to anything else when you opened Daimbert to the possibility of being wrong.

Unfortunately, all his comment ever hinted at was an attempt to claim that most fans liked Rey a lot more than I thought they did, when my point was that they had to like her to a strong degree to find that sort of teaser appealing. In short, that response only worked if it really was the "strawman" that most fans are die-hard Rey fans, who find her doing "cool" things in a movie something to get excited about. While I don't think most fans hate her, I do think that even most fans who like her don't like her enough that seeing that is enough to get them excited.

[Devonix]

Last Jedi didn't really prune the roster down any, there were only 3 main character deaths in the film. Luke, Snoke, and Holdo. Everyone else on both sides were glorified extras, or just extras.

[Daimbert]

Last Jedi didn't really prune the roster down any, there were only 3 main character deaths in the film. Luke, Snoke, and Holdo. Everyone else on both sides were glorified extras, or just extras.

True, but that's mostly just because there wasn't anyone who could carry things on the roster in the first place. Poe got elevated in TLJ, but the claim made that Finn's arc ended there isn't unreasonable. So it took what little roster they had and didn't do anything with it at best except for Poe.

[Keltest]

True, but that's mostly just because there wasn't anyone who could carry things on the roster in the first place. Poe got elevated in TLJ, but the claim made that Finn's arc ended there isn't unreasonable. So it took what little roster they had and didn't do anything with it at best except for Poe.

It may not be unreasonable, but then it also wouldn't be unreasonable to say that Han Solo's arc ended with the destruction of the Death Star in ANH. And yet there he was, taking a lead role in the next two movies of the trilogy.

[Malphegor]

Given how TLJ was going, it wouldn't surprise me if this one results in

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Rey and Ben Solo/Kylo Ren manipulating both sides of the conflict into some sort of stability where it's effectively a peaceful republic where everyone works together but the empire-rattlers are kept sated somehow

But that'd be a bit... weird, to think 2 people could hoodwink a whole galaxy.

[Peelee]

Given how TLJ was going, it wouldn't surprise me if this one results in

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Rey and Ben Solo/Kylo Ren manipulating both sides of the conflict into some sort of stability where it's effectively a peaceful republic where everyone works together but the empire-rattlers are kept sated somehow

Expand that the the Senate and that's basically the plot of Bloodlines.

[The Glyphstone]

Can they just make a live-action adaptation of Lost Stars? That's a NuCanon property everyone actually liked, even if it's still derivative as all get-out.

[Devonix]

True, but that's mostly just because there wasn't anyone who could carry things on the roster in the first place. Poe got elevated in TLJ, but the claim made that Finn's arc ended there isn't unreasonable. So it took what little roster they had and didn't do anything with it at best except for Poe.

I'd say Finn's right in the middle of his arc. First film was him finding someone that he cared about more than himself and his fear making him run away.

The Second film was about him finding a cause to care about, since in the first film he only did what he did for Rey and didn't give a crap about the rebelion or anyone hurt by the First Order, Last jedi was about how even if he and his friends were ok there were still people out there suffering.

The Third will probably be about what he does with that knowledge now, since he didn't know what to do in Last Jedi.

[Peelee]

Can they just make a live-action adaptation of Lost Stars? That's a NuCanon property everyone actually liked, even if it's still derivative as all get-out.

A Young Adult version of Romeo and Juliet in space has no reason whatsoever to be good, and yet it's one of, of not the, best books in the new EU. I've been trying to get all my Star War friends to check it out.

I blame Claudia Gray. She's been batting a thousand on her SW books so far.

[Silver Swift]

But that'd be a bit... weird, to think 2 people could hoodwink a whole galaxy.

I can never tell when people are sarcastic on the internet, but that is exactly what the prequel trilogy would have you believe the Sith have been doing for centuries.

[Peelee]

I can never tell when people are sarcastic on the internet, but that is exactly what the prequel trilogy would have you believe the Sith have been doing for centuries.

Most of the galaxy doesnt care about the Sith, as a religion. They cared about the Sith Empire, sure. But for the rest, the Jedi ain't the galaxy.

[Psyren]

It means exactly as much as you asserting the opposite does.

Indeed, leaving us nothing to go on but the critical and commercial reception to the movies as a whole. Spoiler alert, it doesn't end well for your point of view.

Yes, but as I said none of the lead characters can lead a Resistance-friendly faction, so it's just an internal power struggle that at best would weaken the FO enough to allow for an organized force to have a chance against them. A force that the Resistance doesn't HAVE at the end of TLJ. So it would still be contrived.

How much "organized force" does it really need? We're already seeing a groundswell in the grassroots at the end of TLJ. Revolutions don't have to be clean or surgical to be effective.

[The Glyphstone]

They do have to be organized though, or at least coordinated. Otherwise it's just multiple scattered and independent revolts, and can be stamped out in detail.

[Keltest]

Indeed, leaving us nothing to go on but the critical and commercial reception to the movies as a whole. Spoiler alert, it doesn't end well for your point of view.



How much "organized force" does it really need? We're already seeing a groundswell in the grassroots at the end of TLJ. Revolutions don't have to be clean or surgical to be effective.

Indeed, assuming that the big capital ships we see in TLJ are the majority of their standing forces, its all but impossible for them to actually govern terribly many planets at once. They simply wouldn't have the ability to be everywhere to enforce their will.

[zimmerwald1915]

How much "organized force" does it really need? We're already seeing a groundswell in the grassroots at the end of TLJ. Revolutions don't have to be clean or surgical to be effective.

Just so's we're clear, neither the Restorationist army of the OT nor the spontanaist/exemplary vision of TLJ actually leads anywhere revolutionary. The first is backwards-looking, which is only worthwhile if the past was actually as halcyon as presented, and usually not even then - social developments march on. The latter cannot generate an organization and has no way of exercising power.

Not that we should expect the correct political line from Hollywood, of all places.

[Malifice]

Not at all? She's (still, ever since the first movie) certainly not a Skywalker.

What if she (like Anakin before her) had no Father?

The pretty clear inference so far on Anakins origin is that he is the result of some Force experiment (herein refered to as the Skywalker experiment) that Sidious and Plageous concocted. It's been heavily hinted at, without ever being confirmed.

Luke expressly noted that she was almost exactly like Ren (and they were off the charts the strongest and most untapped Force users he had ever experienced; and remember he had been in the presence of both Yoda, Vader and Palpatine, and was himself a Skywalker).

Like nothing he had ever seen before, and both the same sides of a different coin. Her - a creature of the Light (but drawn to the Dark) and him, a creature of the Dark (but drawn to the Light).

The novelizations have drawn the exact same inference, and made it equally clear.

The movies have been at pains to point out this potency and uniqueness about them, plus also this bond or connection between them. In light of Snokes noticing of the Force suddenly 'awakening' (and now Palpatine popping back up) it just seems likely that this whole thing is simply the 'end game' of the 'Skywalker experiment'.

The director has basically stated that this all has been part of Palpys plan from the start, and they want to tie it all together.

[Daimbert]

Indeed, leaving us nothing to go on but the critical and commercial reception to the movies as a whole. Spoiler alert, it doesn't end well for your point of view.

You really do like these odd and irrelevant non sequitors, don't you? Or are you claiming that those people go to and like the movies primarily because of Rey, rather than the more likely explanation that it's because it's STAR WARS? Because there's no other way that means that things wouldn't work out for my point of view.

EDIT: Let me make it absolutely clear: most people do not go to see these Star Wars movies just to see Rey. That includes people who like her. There are more reasons to go to them than that. My claim is that this teaser only really strongly excites those who DO primarily go to see these movies because of her.

How much "organized force" does it really need? We're already seeing a groundswell in the grassroots at the end of TLJ. Revolutions don't have to be clean or surgical to be effective.

If you use that to make it so that the grassroots movement doesn't need organized force, then this will mean that in this movie there won't be much need for the Resistance either. You know, the group that the movie is supposed to be focusing on, that contains that Rey person who's supposed to be the protagonist and so have the most agency?