As much as I've sounded like a total TLJ hater for the last two years, a good 90% of what other people complain about didn't really bother me. By allowing Kylo Ren to be redeemed, and no it's not just the same as what happened with Vader, it has fixed my central frustration with The Last Jedi and so do genuinely now think that is a movie I can enjoy watching in the future. I still wish Han and Leia had more then just one kid, but these are the movies we got.
The Sequel Trilogy is still infinitely inferior to The Prequel Trilogy, and will always be less Canon in my mind then anything George Lucas was directly involved with. But as someone who's tastes in cinema are pretty modern these movies can still be more watchable to me then A New Hope.
The Rise Of Skywalker could have been better, this is not quite the movie JJ Abrams wanted to make.
https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/comments/eisnd8/heres_what_ive_been_told_from_a_source_that/?st=K4XMB15A&sh=bfb54b94
And I still think this plot would have been better if the villain was Snoke revealed to be Darth Plagueis instead of just Palpatine again. But it's a movie about Space Wizards made for children, they don't need to be perfect.
Now I shall address some common criticisms. But not what this video (A Guide to The Rise Of Skywalker) already covered.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ieoh178hBJ4
Rose Tico's role in this movie was a lot larger then I was expecting based on the way everyone complained about her being short changed. But yes her role is smaller then before and guess what, every Star Wars trilogy so far has someone in the third film who's not as important as they were in at least one prior movie. Lando's role was small in ROTJ and Jar Jar Binks doesn't even have any lines in ROTS.
"But lessening her role at all seems like appeasing the bigots" well guess what you can't write a story based on what people will perceive because of things that happened outside the story. They could have killed her off screen if they really wanted to pander to her haters.
And no I don't agree with the conspiracy theory that Jar Jar's role was lessened because of fan backlash either, his role was always going to decrease as the Trilogy got darker and there was less room for the childlike innocence he represents.
Likewise Rose's role in TLJ was entirety about how it effects Finn's development (a fact ignored by those loving or hating the film for how allegedly Feminist it was), Finn's development in this movie was different, her role there was already done. And I think it says more about the fans then the film that people assume Finn is now getting with the new Black Woman instead of Rose, I saw no real ship teasing there at all. It's not at all the same as with Poe's new girlfriend.
I would not have brought Palpatine back (well a decade ago I would have but I have grown as a writer since then). But the idea that Vader's sacrifice was for nothing because The Emperor isn't dead kind of misses the point. Vader was not redeemed because he killed someone, he was redeemed because he saved Luke. The Emperor as an individual dying is ultimately a small fraction of why that battle was such a devastating defeat for The Empire anyway, but regardless what did happen to Palpatine still rendered him out of the picture for decades. What ever peace and prosperity the New Republic did have before Starkiller base destroyed it was still entirely because of what the OT's heroes achieved at the battle of Endor.
That's another thing, a lot of ROS complaints seem like people finally realizing what this Trilogy's implications were all along.
"Rey killing the Emperor with Two lightsabers undermines all of the anti aggression messages of the prior films". Again, no not really.
Yes The Prequels are about how the Jedi lost sight of their true calling by fighting in a war, and Luke's throwing down his Lightsaber at the end of ROTJ is when he truly becomes a Jedi better then any we saw during the Clone Wars. But no the movies are not saying the Jedi need to stop using Lightsabers altogether. Luke does have his Lightsaber back when he's on Ednor again at the end of ROTJ if you pay close attention, and TLJ confirmed that he had it when he was training Kylo. Yoda said a Jedi never uses his power for attack but does say it is be used for defense.
In The Phantom Menace the Jedi Council is already losing it's way, however Qui-Gon Jinn is the last of what a Jedi should be, that's part of the Symbolic importance of his death. The Lightsaber duel with Darth Maul is how things should be, Maul drew his blades first and the Jedi were fighting him to defend the Naboo. But at the end of ROTS both Yoda and Obi-Wan draw their blades first.
The real comparison however for Reys' confrontation with Palpatine is to Mace Windu's. If Palpatine had kept firing his lightening while Windu's defenses were up till it killed him that would have been his own fault not Windu's. But he did stop and Windu's violation of the Jedi code in Anakin's eyes was attacking a Palpatine who seemed.to be helpless.
Rey resisted the temptation to attack Palpatine, but Palpatine's rage filled decision to keep attacking her is what killed him.
Linkara wants these movies to say Lightsabers are bad because he shares Denny O'Niel's opinion on Guns. I however share Karl Marx's opinion on guns.
No comments:
Post a Comment