Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

[BatmanFurst]

This is easily the best video I've seen about the Sequel trilogy, and his pitch for what it could've been is fantastic.

[Silver Nemesis]

The treatment of all 3 of the OT characters in the new films is so odd to me. When I look at their involvement in the recent trilogy I'm left asking "Why did you bring these characters back"? The films don't seem interested in continuing their stories at all. Han's (My favorite Star Wars character) arc is completely undone so that he can be reset to who he was in the original film, Leia is just there, and Luke is just turned into a coward and a failure. One of my big problems with Luke's portrayal is that it doesn't even line up with The Force Awakens. In TFA Snoke says "If Skywalker returns the new Jedi will rise" cut to The Last Jedi where Luke has no intention of bringing the Jedi back and at the end of the trilogy the fate of the Jedi is up in the air. How Kennedy could listen to the pitches for these scripts and be completely fine with how the OT characters are treated, or how certain plot points from TFA are left unresolved is a mystery.

You're right about Han. His character arc in Episode IV takes him from being a roguish smuggler motivated by greed and self-interest to being a responsible hero motivated by loyalty to his friends and the Rebellion's cause. This character growth continues throughout Episodes V and VI, until by the end of the OT he's matured into a committed general ready to take on the responsibilities of marriage and parenthood. But Episode VII completely undoes all that growth so that he reverts to being the roguish smuggler he was at the start of Episode IV. He abandons his wife, his kid, the Rebellion/Resistance, all because Jar Jar Abrams wanted to remake A New Hope. The old Expanded Universe built upon Han's character growth in the OT and advanced it further. The ST did the opposite.

Leia fared no better. At the start of the OT she was a commander overseeing battles from the Rebel base while her soldiers put their lives on the line. But by Episode VI she was manifesting Jedi traits like telepathy and fast reflexes (but not the fully developed Jedi skills of which Rey displayed an inexplicable proficiency throughout Episode VII), and she was getting into the thick of the action. It's Leia who kills Jabba the Hutt and who initiates the speeder bike chase on Endor, and she plays an active role fighting Stormtroopers during the final battle. Luke promises Yoda he will pass on what he has learnt, and it's obvious at the end of ROTJ that his first student will be Leia. Again, the Expanded Universe ran with this and showed her becoming a Jedi. But in the ST Jar Jar Abrams had her regress to her command post role from Episode IV. Other than showing her sensing Han's death and surviving the vacuum of space (which is as absurd now as it was in 2017), the ST failed to capitalise on the OT's promise that Leia would become a powerful Jedi like her father.

The only explanation we get for this oversight is a brief flashback shoehorned into Episode IX where it's revealed that she stopped training to be a Jedi because... she sensed something bad would happen to her son if she did? Really? That's the best explanation they could come up with? I hate how the filmmakers fell back on the lazy "so-and-so sensed something in the Force" trope to excuse Luke and Leia behaving irrationally or out of character. The writers couldn't think of a valid reason to justify Luke failing to build the new Jedi Order, or Leia not becoming a Jedi, so they inserted flashbacks in which they "sense" something that's meant to account for their otherwise unmotivated actions. Luke senses his nephew might turn bad, and Leia senses her son might die, and this is all the explanation we get for their illogical behaviour. It's dreadful writing.

But what Rian Johnson did to Luke – that takes the bad writing to a whole new level.

When you're bringing back established characters, you can't just begin with a completely different characterisation from the one the audience knows just so you can subvert their expectations. If you want to show Luke falling to the Dark Side, as he did in the old Dark Empire comic, then fine; but you've got to start with the character fans recognise and then organically propel him towards that goal. You can't just have him reappear as a completely different person so you can say, "Aha! You didn't see that coming!" (SPOILERS for the Mandalorian) That's why I like that clip from the Mandalorian. Impressive action aside, it feels more consistent with Luke's characterisation at the end of the OT. He finds a powerful and potentially dangerous Force-sensitive child, and his response is to take the child under his wing and protect him. That's the real Luke. He's not standing over the child with his lightsaber drawn contemplating whether or not he should murder him in his sleep. Luke, the galaxy's hope, who was willing to let the Emperor kill him rather than strike down his father, would never pre-emptively murder someone, let alone his own nephew, just because that person might one day become bad. In that one short sequence, the makers of The Mandalorian captured the essence of what Luke represents - a new hope - better than all three ST movies combined. Aside from his dodgy CG-face, I have no trouble believing that that's the Luke from ROTJ (end SPOILERS).

I think a big problem here is that these films were clearly rushed. Both the OT and the Prequel trilogy had a two year gap between films. The new films only had a year between them, and it shows. Personally, I think these news films were dictated by release dates than stories to tell.

In the wake of other legacy sequels like Creed, Blade Runner 2049, and even Cobra Kai (To my surprise) the new trilogy is just a complete failure for me. The aforementioned films and tv show are true sequels to their respective franchises. They introduce new compelling characters and the original characters still have an important role to play. How Star Wars could fail where even the Karate Kid series succeeded hurts my soul. I just keep coming back to my excitement for The Force Awakens. I kept wondering what the new story was going to be, and what Han, Luke, and Leia had been up to for 30 years. And the answers to all those questions were so unsatisfying for me.

Also, the fact that they screwed up on simple things like Rey being all powerful with the force when she's never been trained just tells me that nobody working on those films really cared that much about Star Wars. I think Kennedy's primary concern was representation and that's it. As it stand the new trilogy is one of the biggest cinematic missed opportunities.

This is easily the best video I've seen about the Sequel trilogy, and his pitch for what it could've been is fantastic.

I'll try and watch this when I get a chance. The autopsy of the Sequel Trilogy is destined to be an ongoing project.

[thecolorsblend]

You're right about Han. His character arc in Episode IV takes him from being a roguish smuggler motivated by greed and self-interest to being a responsible hero motivated by loyalty to his friends and the Rebellion's cause. This character growth continues throughout Episodes V and VI, until by the end of the OT he's matured into a committed general ready to take on the responsibilities of marriage and parenthood. But Episode VII completely undoes all that growth so that he reverts to being the roguish smuggler he was at the start of Episode IV. He abandons his wife, his kid, the Rebellion/Resistance, all because Jar Jar Abrams wanted to remake A New Hope. The old Expanded Universe built upon Han's character growth in the OT and advanced it further. The ST did the opposite.

Leia fared no better. At the start of the OT she was a commander overseeing battles from the Rebel base while her soldiers put their lives on the line. But by Episode VI she was manifesting Jedi traits like telepathy and fast reflexes (but not the fully developed Jedi skills of which Rey displayed an inexplicable proficiency throughout Episode VII), and she was getting into the thick of the action. It's Leia who kills Jabba the Hutt and who initiates the speeder bike chase on Endor, and she plays an active role fighting Stormtroopers during the final battle. Luke promises Yoda he will pass on what he has learnt, and it's obvious at the end of ROTJ that his first student will be Leia. Again, the Expanded Universe ran with this and showed her becoming a Jedi. But in the ST Jar Jar Abrams had her regress to her command post role from Episode IV. Other than showing her sensing Han's death and surviving the vacuum of space (which is as absurd now as it was in 2017), the ST failed to capitalise on the OT's promise that Leia would become a powerful Jedi like her father.

The only explanation we get for this oversight is a brief flashback shoehorned into Episode IX where it's revealed that she stopped training to be a Jedi because... she sensed something bad would happen to her son if she did? Really? That's the best explanation they could come up with? I hate how the filmmakers fell back on the lazy "so-and-so sensed something in the Force" trope to excuse Luke and Leia behaving irrationally or out of character. The writers couldn't think of a valid reason to justify Luke failing to build the new Jedi Order, or Leia not becoming a Jedi, so they inserted flashbacks in which they "sense" something that's meant to account for their otherwise unmotivated actions. Luke senses his nephew might turn bad, and Leia senses her son might die, and this is all the explanation we get for their illogical behaviour. It's dreadful writing.

But what Rian Johnson did to Luke – that takes the bad writing to a whole new level.

You know me. I've probably annoyed everyone here by saying I'm not onboard with Disney Star Wars (including The Mandalorian, aside from the last ten'ish minutes of the season two finale) and blah blah blah.

My big gripe with TFA was Rey as a completely unrealistic Force prodigy. Everything else flows from that.

However, Doomcock got his hands on the supposedly original Abrams treatment (before Ruin Johnson wiped his... mouth with it) for Episode 8 and I must say, it really might've retroactively improved TFA. There was a reason Rey could do X, Y and Z as a complete neophyte. It doesn't solve everything. Rey is still a Mary Sue in TFA. But at least the Jedi elements of her Mary Sueness would've been accounted for handily. From all accounts, it would've been a radically different movie from what Johnson made in terms of characterization, story, cliffhangers, etc.

Even Luke (especially Luke) would've fared better in the Episode 8 treatment than the eventual TLJ movie we got. Luke was no quitter in the originally intended Episode 8. He had been hiding, biding his time and doing the majority of the heavy lifting for decades in terms of resisting the evil he saw coming on the horizon.

It is to fans' eternal cost that Johnson abandoned the plan. Because I might've been forced to eat my words if the original outlines had been developed properly.

There are some minor story problems with the Episode 8 treatment... which Doomcock regards as evidence that this may be the work of Abrams after all because these are the kinds of silly ideas he'd come up. Doomcock is skeptical overall (and so am I) but I would love to believe that Abrams (or somebody close to the production) developed that Episode 8 treatment because it rly is a better product.

[BatmanFurst]

The treatment of all 3 of the OT characters in the new films is so odd to me. When I look at their involvement in the recent trilogy I'm left asking "Why did you bring these characters back"? The films don't seem interested in continuing their stories at all. Han's (My favorite Star Wars character) arc is completely undone so that he can be reset to who he was in the original film, Leia is just there, and Luke is just turned into a coward and a failure. One of my big problems with Luke's portrayal is that it doesn't even line up with The Force Awakens. In TFA Snoke says "If Skywalker returns the new Jedi will rise" cut to The Last Jedi where Luke has no intention of bringing the Jedi back and at the end of the trilogy the fate of the Jedi is up in the air. How Kennedy could listen to the pitches for these scripts and be completely fine with how the OT characters are treated, or how certain plot points from TFA are left unresolved is a mystery.

You're right about Han. His character arc in Episode IV takes him from being a roguish smuggler motivated by greed and self-interest to being a responsible hero motivated by loyalty to his friends and the Rebellion's cause. This character growth continues throughout Episodes V and VI, until by the end of the OT he's matured into a committed general ready to take on the responsibilities of marriage and parenthood. But Episode VII completely undoes all that growth so that he reverts to being the roguish smuggler he was at the start of Episode IV. He abandons his wife, his kid, the Rebellion/Resistance, all because Jar Jar Abrams wanted to remake A New Hope. The old Expanded Universe built upon Han's character growth in the OT and advanced it further. The ST did the opposite.

Leia fared no better. At the start of the OT she was a commander overseeing battles from the Rebel base while her soldiers put their lives on the line. But by Episode VI she was manifesting Jedi traits like telepathy and fast reflexes (but not the fully developed Jedi skills of which Rey displayed an inexplicable proficiency throughout Episode VII), and she was getting into the thick of the action. It's Leia who kills Jabba the Hutt and who initiates the speeder bike chase on Endor, and she plays an active role fighting Stormtroopers during the final battle. Luke promises Yoda he will pass on what he has learnt, and it's obvious at the end of ROTJ that his first student will be Leia. Again, the Expanded Universe ran with this and showed her becoming a Jedi. But in the ST Jar Jar Abrams had her regress to her command post role from Episode IV. Other than showing her sensing Han's death and surviving the vacuum of space (which is as absurd now as it was in 2017), the ST failed to capitalise on the OT's promise that Leia would become a powerful Jedi like her father.

The only explanation we get for this oversight is a brief flashback shoehorned into Episode IX where it's revealed that she stopped training to be a Jedi because... she sensed something bad would happen to her son if she did? Really? That's the best explanation they could come up with? I hate how the filmmakers fell back on the lazy "so-and-so sensed something in the Force" trope to excuse Luke and Leia behaving irrationally or out of character. The writers couldn't think of a valid reason to justify Luke failing to build the new Jedi Order, or Leia not becoming a Jedi, so they inserted flashbacks in which they "sense" something that's meant to account for their otherwise unmotivated actions. Luke senses his nephew might turn bad, and Leia senses her son might die, and this is all the explanation we get for their illogical behaviour. It's dreadful writing.

But what Rian Johnson did to Luke – that takes the bad writing to a whole new level.

When you're bringing back established characters, you can't just begin with a completely different characterisation from the one the audience knows just so you can subvert their expectations. If you want to show Luke falling to the Dark Side, as he did in the old Dark Empire comic, then fine; but you've got to start with the character fans recognise and then organically propel him towards that goal. You can't just have him reappear as a completely different person so you can say, "Aha! You didn't see that coming!" (SPOILERS for the Mandalorian) That's why I like that clip from the Mandalorian. Impressive action aside, it feels more consistent with Luke's characterisation at the end of the OT. He finds a powerful and potentially dangerous Force-sensitive child, and his response is to take the child under his wing and protect him. That's the real Luke. He's not standing over the child with his lightsaber drawn contemplating whether or not he should murder him in his sleep. Luke, the galaxy's hope, who was willing to let the Emperor kill him rather than strike down his father, would never pre-emptively murder someone, let alone his own nephew, just because that person might one day become bad. In that one short sequence, the makers of The Mandalorian captured the essence of what Luke represents - a new hope - better than all three ST movies combined. Aside from his dodgy CG-face, I have no trouble believing that that's the Luke from ROTJ (end SPOILERS).

I think a big problem here is that these films were clearly rushed. Both the OT and the Prequel trilogy had a two year gap between films. The new films only had a year between them, and it shows. Personally, I think these news films were dictated by release dates than stories to tell.

In the wake of other legacy sequels like Creed, Blade Runner 2049, and even Cobra Kai (To my surprise) the new trilogy is just a complete failure for me. The aforementioned films and tv show are true sequels to their respective franchises. They introduce new compelling characters and the original characters still have an important role to play. How Star Wars could fail where even the Karate Kid series succeeded hurts my soul. I just keep coming back to my excitement for The Force Awakens. I kept wondering what the new story was going to be, and what Han, Luke, and Leia had been up to for 30 years. And the answers to all those questions were so unsatisfying for me.

Also, the fact that they screwed up on simple things like Rey being all powerful with the force when she's never been trained just tells me that nobody working on those films really cared that much about Star Wars. I think Kennedy's primary concern was representation and that's it. As it stand the new trilogy is one of the biggest cinematic missed opportunities.

This is easily the best video I've seen about the Sequel trilogy, and his pitch for what it could've been is fantastic.

I'll try and watch this when I get a chance. The autopsy of the Sequel Trilogy is destined to be an ongoing project.

Mandalorian is fantastic, and you get a sense that that creative team just gets it. It doesn't hinge itself on nostalgia or tearing down what came before. It as expanded the world in the same way that the prequels did, and it respects what came before.

[BatmanFurst]

You're right about Han. His character arc in Episode IV takes him from being a roguish smuggler motivated by greed and self-interest to being a responsible hero motivated by loyalty to his friends and the Rebellion's cause. This character growth continues throughout Episodes V and VI, until by the end of the OT he's matured into a committed general ready to take on the responsibilities of marriage and parenthood. But Episode VII completely undoes all that growth so that he reverts to being the roguish smuggler he was at the start of Episode IV. He abandons his wife, his kid, the Rebellion/Resistance, all because Jar Jar Abrams wanted to remake A New Hope. The old Expanded Universe built upon Han's character growth in the OT and advanced it further. The ST did the opposite.

Leia fared no better. At the start of the OT she was a commander overseeing battles from the Rebel base while her soldiers put their lives on the line. But by Episode VI she was manifesting Jedi traits like telepathy and fast reflexes (but not the fully developed Jedi skills of which Rey displayed an inexplicable proficiency throughout Episode VII), and she was getting into the thick of the action. It's Leia who kills Jabba the Hutt and who initiates the speeder bike chase on Endor, and she plays an active role fighting Stormtroopers during the final battle. Luke promises Yoda he will pass on what he has learnt, and it's obvious at the end of ROTJ that his first student will be Leia. Again, the Expanded Universe ran with this and showed her becoming a Jedi. But in the ST Jar Jar Abrams had her regress to her command post role from Episode IV. Other than showing her sensing Han's death and surviving the vacuum of space (which is as absurd now as it was in 2017), the ST failed to capitalise on the OT's promise that Leia would become a powerful Jedi like her father.

The only explanation we get for this oversight is a brief flashback shoehorned into Episode IX where it's revealed that she stopped training to be a Jedi because... she sensed something bad would happen to her son if she did? Really? That's the best explanation they could come up with? I hate how the filmmakers fell back on the lazy "so-and-so sensed something in the Force" trope to excuse Luke and Leia behaving irrationally or out of character. The writers couldn't think of a valid reason to justify Luke failing to build the new Jedi Order, or Leia not becoming a Jedi, so they inserted flashbacks in which they "sense" something that's meant to account for their otherwise unmotivated actions. Luke senses his nephew might turn bad, and Leia senses her son might die, and this is all the explanation we get for their illogical behaviour. It's dreadful writing.

But what Rian Johnson did to Luke – that takes the bad writing to a whole new level.

You know me. I've probably annoyed everyone here by saying I'm not onboard with Disney Star Wars (including The Mandalorian, aside from the last ten'ish minutes of the season two finale) and blah blah blah.

My big gripe with TFA was Rey as a completely unrealistic Force prodigy. Everything else flows from that.

However, Doomcock got his hands on the supposedly original Abrams treatment (before Ruin Johnson wiped his... mouth with it) for Episode 8 and I must say, it really might've retroactively improved TFA. There was a reason Rey could do X, Y and Z as a complete neophyte. It doesn't solve everything. Rey is still a Mary Sue in TFA. But at least the Jedi elements of her Mary Sueness would've been accounted for handily. From all accounts, it would've been a radically different movie from what Johnson made in terms of characterization, story, cliffhangers, etc.

Even Luke (especially Luke) would've fared better in the Episode 8 treatment than the eventual TLJ movie we got. Luke was no quitter in the originally intended Episode 8. He had been hiding, biding his time and doing the majority of the heavy lifting for decades in terms of resisting the evil he saw coming on the horizon.

It is to fans' eternal cost that Johnson abandoned the plan. Because I might've been forced to eat my words if the original outlines had been developed properly.

There are some minor story problems with the Episode 8 treatment... which Doomcock regards as evidence that this may be the work of Abrams after all because these are the kinds of silly ideas he'd come up. Doomcock is skeptical overall (and so am I) but I would love to believe that Abrams (or somebody close to the production) developed that Episode 8 treatment because it rly is a better product.

If this is true, again why would Kennedy just allow Johnson to just throw out that outline?

[Silver Nemesis]

I didn't see Doomcock's video on the leaked treatment, but I did watch the Midnight's Edge video about it. There are enough silly JJ tropes, such as the magic blood and mystery box elements, that I could believe he wrote it. But I'm not entirely convinced. Some of those JJ tropes feel a little too on the nose, almost as though it's a pastiche of a JJ story. But if nothing else, the handling of Luke is superior to what we got in Episode VIII.

Mark Hamill once referred to the emasculated milk-guzzling defeatist coward he portrayed in the ST as Jake Skywalker.

The name has since caught on.

Doomcock and Midnight's Edge have both been advancing a theory that Team Favreau are pushing to erase Jake Skywalker and the rest of the ST from the timeline. If true, there's a chance these gentlemen could salvage Star Wars from the destructive clutches of Darth Kennedy.

Perhaps there's still hope for this franchise after all.

[Silver Nemesis]

Star Wars: Kathleen Kennedy's Contract With Lucasfilm Reportedly Renewed For Three More Years

https://comicbook.com/starwars/news/star-wars-kathleen-kennedy-contract-renewed-lucasfilm/

[thecolorsblend]

Hopefully by now, Doomcock has lost all his credibility. He's been predicting Kennedy's ouster for at least a year now.

How that grifter has managed to survive being wrong so often is beyond me.

Yes yes yes, I used to link to some of his videos. The reason for that is because his track record wasn't as horrendous back then as it is now. Mea culpa, won't happen again, believe me.

[The Laughing Fish]

Hopefully by now, Doomcock has lost all his credibility. He's been predicting Kennedy's ouster for at least a year now.

With an idiotic name like Doomcock, I'm surprised you gave the creep any time of your day to be honest.

I think I'm going to stop paying attention to all of these scoopers going forward. Unless it's confirmed by the trades, always take everything with a grain of salt. Some scoopers might get a couple of things right, but chances are they may have stolen sources from somebody else, or they're simply guessing.

[thecolorsblend]

Hopefully by now, Doomcock has lost all his credibility. He's been predicting Kennedy's ouster for at least a year now.

With an idiotic name like Doomcock, I'm surprised you gave the creep any time of your day to be honest.

I think I'm going to stop paying attention to all of these scoopers going forward. Unless it's confirmed by the trades, always take everything with a grain of salt. Some scoopers might get a couple of things right, but chances are they may have stolen sources from somebody else, or they're simply guessing.

In Doomcock's case, he stole his scoops for TROS from 4chan or something and then pretended like they were his. I wasn't aware of that at the time. But that's the stuff he got "right" (because he stole it).

His original stuff (i.e., Jon Favreau is perpetually on the cusp of taking full control of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy will be let go any second now, etc.) has always been wrong. But the stuff he swiped from other sources briefly gave him some small amount of credibility.

All of which has just been blasted off the face of the earth. If anybody still follows him now, I can only guess they're drinking ALL of the Kool-Aid and asking for seconds.