Long Live The Last Jedi (Off-Topic)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Thursday, December 19, 2019, 21:55 (1798 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

Look, TLJ has some serious missteps. It went on diversions that muddled the story and accomplished less than nothing. It has some terrible pacing with the slow motion space chase. But, it has a point and a purpose that it was driving for. It continued and strengthened and did an excellent job portraying the connection and tension between Kylo and Rey. It made me like grumpy Luke by having Yoda teach him a final lesson.

Rise of Skywalker did so many things wrong that I'm not even going to try and detail them all tonight. I gotta get to sleep sometime. But, I think its worst sins were:

1. It felt almost completely disconnected from TFA and TLJ. It either undid or ignored almost everything from the previous film.
2. It fell back on a villain from the past instead of having a villain of its own. (Though, this is a huge problem with the entire trilogy...)
3. I felt the final act was boring as hell. The fleet battle was anemic and the civilian fleet arriving was nonsensical given the heavy maneuvering military vessels had to do to reach the destination.
4. I felt like Kylo Ren should have been the final villain. I loved the moment where Rey literally and figuratively shut the door on him at the end of The Last Jedi. Only to have him redeemed here. I did not like the redemption at all. Felt it was completely unearned.
5. I was extremely disappointed in that final scene. Ok, fine, Rey returned to the Skywalker home. That has some meaning, I guess.. But... what about her? Does she have any plans or hopes or goals? What about the Jedi? Is she going to rebuild the order? Like it was? Like a more balanced order as Luke hinted at in TLJ? Just having her stand there staring into the sunset was such an empty beat and a huge disservice to her character.

This is the most negative I've bene about a movie since I saw the live action Ghost in the Shell. It felt almost worthless to me. I think it was a very disappointing end to the trilogy.

Did I like anything? Sure. Two things:

1. I thought showing that an unplanned hyperspace jump with the light speed skipping of the Falcon was fun.
2. I enjoyed the force teleportation that kept happening between Rey and Kylo. The passing of the lightsaber was clever... shame the enemies were nameless nobodies that weren't even a threat.

Anyway, much more from me later this weekend. I'd like to really dig down into things. Consider this just a very quick overview of my thoughts and reasonings... Ultimately, though, I wish Star Wars had maintained the focus on character and hard choice conflict that we got a glimpse of in The Last Jedi...