This popped up on my YouTube recommends. I think this guy might have been on to something. heh.
Summary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzG3m-ZW198
Star Wars | Rey Palpatine Theory
2,098,982 views
•Dec 10, 2017
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Palpatine talked a bunch, then said you’re going to kill me.
Rey said ok. And then killed him.
Empress Rey!
So I saw it, and overall enjoyed it pretty well. It’s not my favorite Star Wars, but it’s not my least favorite by a mile.
Much like TLJ, it was roughly 30% too long. Coulda chopped off the beginning stuff and just started with the quest to rescue Chewie. Woulda fixed pretty much all pacing problems, because after that point I think it settled into a much more normal pace. The beginning was just too much OH MAN LOOK AT ALL THESE HIJINX AND ALSO STORMTROOPERS FLY NOW ISN’T THAT COOL?
My largest disappoinment is:
Spoiler
they didn’t fully commit to permanently ending the Skywalker lineage and Jedi/Sith supremacy. The movies had been building this background idea that the Force belongs to everyone (see: force sensitive storm troopers, the fleet composed of “just people,” little kids with spontaneous force powers) and the genre-perfect way to end a saga is to have your lineage die and integrate into the rest of the world. It was set up to do that perfectly, but they pulled the punch. Rey should’ve died along with Palpatine and Kylo Ren, and the other characters should have continued on without them. The end was sort of a compromised version of that - Rey basically “kills” the Palpatine lineage by abandoning the name and adopting the name of an also-dead lineage, effectively removing lineage from the equation. Weaker, but at least it still accomplishes my core desire.
All in all, a fine end to a saga that really should’ve ended 15 years ago or whenever Revenge of the Sith came out. Fuck Jedi and fuck Sith, tell us cool stories about the rest of the universe.
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I mean I will point out that this is a grand tradition in Star Wars. See also Harrison Ford ad-libbing “I know.”
No argument here. That’s what the story ultimately is about, in the end. I think I’m OK with it, too.
Though, I could quibble and say Palpatine’s role is more akin to that of Odin in the Volsung saga - sort of an ever-present background figure who monkies around with fate. The saga is still about the families even though there’s a master manipulator the whole time.
Might be a distinction without a difference.
I think there’s a huge difference between ad-libbing and an actor handing the director notes before the movie gets written.
So I saw The Rise of Skywalker yesterday as well, and I was decidedly meh about it.
I have a lot of problems with the movie, but for me, I didn’t think it was too long. My biggest problem with the movie is that it seemed like it was a highlight reel of a movie I actually wanted to see. Everything went by so quickly that nothing in the movie, up until the very end, had any emotional impact or ressonance.
The Rise of Skywalker seemed like it was trying to cram two movie’s worth of plot and characterization into one movie. This is my biggest problem not just with this one movie, but with this entire third trilogy. There was no goddamn plan. I’ll get into specific spoilers in a bit, but the entire third movie is basically a refutation and a do-over of The Last Jedi. That’s a terrible idea.
There should have been a plan from Day One. They should have mapped out the story beats and the character arcs for all three movies in advance. At the very least, they should have picked directors whose movies didn’t try to negate and undo everything that the previous movie did. You liked The Last Jedi? That’s fine, but it was basically a refutation of The Force Awakens. You want to let Rian Johnson direct a movie and push the boundaries of Star Wars movies? That’s fine, don’t hire him to direct the middle movie of a three movie trilogy.
It seems pretty clear that Disney, Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy, whomever, never sat down and plotted out this trilogy of movies ahead of time. Again, they had no plan. The shift in directors, from Abrams to Johnson and back to Abrams, was a disaster. The shift in tone, in story, in character development, in focus, was all over the place. I felt like I was watching a movie trilogy with multiple-personality-disorder. I mostly didn’t enjoy The Last Jedi, and apparently neither did J. J. Abrams, so as a result, instead of ending the trilogy on a strong emotional note, The Rise of Skywalker had to pull double-duty, it had to end the trilogy and it had to “fix” everything that Rian Johnson broke in The Last Jedi.
The problem with this final trilogy is that it isn’t cohesive in any way that matters. Love him or hate him or his movie, J. J. Abrams set the tone in The Force Awakens. He left the plot threads dangling for the next movie. Then Rian Johnson comes in and basically doesn’t care about any of that. He makes his own movies with his own themes and either ignores or summarily cuts off all the plot threads that Abrams left. That was bad enough for me, but then bringing Abrams back in, and having him try to rehabilitate the trilogy almost made it worse.
You can say that Disney and J. J. Abrams caved in to the fanboys, and there’s probably some truth to that, but overall, I actually liked the plot of The Rise of Skywalker, I just thought it was executed in a terrible fashion. I can only imagine what this trilogy would have looked like if Abrams, or anyone really, had had a unified vision and plan of what Episodes VII, VIII, and IX looked like.
Spoiler
I've had this convesation at length with people, but Star Wars was never going to end the Jedi/Sith supremecy/duality. That IS Star Wars. The one thing that makes Star Wars stand out as a franchise, as a universe, is the Force, are the Jedi and the Sith. I honestly don't care about the Skywalker lineage. To me, the Force already belongs to everyone. The problem is that the movies never show that. Maybe it's because of my background as a fan of a lot of the old Expanded Universe stories, but while the Skywalkers always played a major role, there were literally hundreds of other Jedi out there with cool stories that were told.The problem isn’t the Skywalker lineage, the problem is the narrow focus in the movies. The problem is that nothing happened in the Star Wars Universe from Return of the Jedi to The Force Awakens. The problem is that someone, somewhere, decided that there can really be only two Jedi and two Sith. Everyone got older, but essentailly the state of the universe didn’t change.
Make more Jedi! Have more Sith! Instead of being some hermit who runs away from the world, Luke Skywalker should have made a New Jedi Order. He should have tried to fix all the problems with the Jedi. Is it a coincidence that everyone loves the Knights of the Old Republic time period? The one time period in old Star Wars cannon where you had thousands of Jedi and Sith at war with each other is probably the most popular time period. But Disney won’t make movies during that period and they won’t actually allow the Star Wars Universe to age or advance in a natural fashion.
Now, here are some of my specific complaints with The Rise of Skywalker…
As mentioned earlier, I enjoyed the plot beats but felt like I was watching a highlight reel of the movie I actually wanted to see. If I could wave a magic wand and do over this entire trilogy, I would have completely erased pretty much everything that happened in The Last Jedi and used Episode VIII as a set up for The Rise of Skywalker.
You want to bring back Palpatine? That’s cool, I’m onboard with that idea, just don’t drop him into the Opening Crawl like some random guy jumping out from around the corner shouting “Surprise, I’m Back!” There should have been more build-up to Palpatine’s return. There should have been some kind of foreshadowing or connection to the previous two movies. Again, this is Abrams basically undoing everything that Johnson did. Did Abrams always plan to bring Palpatine back? I have no idea, but I love the idea of Palpatine manipulating things from the shadows, controlling Snope. But the way it was done, it reminded me of bad videogames and fantasy novels where they basically do a “You killed the bad guy… but there’s this OTHER bad guy who was really running things.” No fucking planning.
Take the paragraph immediately above this one and basically do the same thing about Rey’s parentage. I liked that she was a Palpatine. I like the reversal of the Skywalker/Palpatine conflict where the Skywalker is actually the bad guy and the Palpatine is the good guy. But again, the execution was terrible. In Empire Strikes Back, Luke finds out that Vader is his father towards the end of the movie, but they had been foreshadowing that since A New Hope, whether Lucas planned that or not, I don’t know. In Return of the Jedi, Luke is trying to deal with who is dad is, trying to deal with Vader.
In this trilogy, you have pretty much the entire Force Awakens making a big deal about who Rey’s parents are, hinting at who knows what, only for The Last Jedi to blow up all of that. Rey is a nobody. Then, you have the Rise of Skywalker going “just kidding!” Rey is actually the granddaughter of the most evil person in the galaxy who we all thought was dead but actually isn’t. PLOT TWIST! But the movie is rushing by so quickly that there wasn’t enough time in the movie to fully explore that or have her deal with it. They spend a couple minutes of Rey moping around going all “Nobody knows me!” but they could have leaned into that a lot more.
Which brings me to my next problem of the movie… Kylo Ren. Generally speaking, I loved Adam Driver’s portrayal of Ren. I thought he was great in all three movies. I loved the inner conflict and sense of inadequacy he had. I loved his relationship with Rey. Kylo and Rey were my favorite parts of this trilogy and the only things I think they got right. I hated his “origin story” though. I hated how they portrayed Luke Skywalker in relation to Kylo. Again, we’ll never know, but instead of Luke trying to kill Kylo, I would have much preferred Palpatine seducing him to the Dark Side. Kylo and Rey’s interactions and relationship were great. Don’t change any of that. But his “conversion” back to the Light Side of the Force seemed out of left field and didn’t have much emotional impact for me.
Yeah, it was kind of cool seeing Harrison Ford come back and basically have them redo his death scene, but this time have it be the death of Kylo and the return of Ben Solo, but it happened too soon and with the wrong character. Kylo Ren should have returned to the Light Side in the final act of the movie, when it’s Palpatine, Rey, and Kylo all together. Rey should have succumbed to the Dark Side and Kylo should have been “saved” and brought her back.
The Rise of Skywalker should have really leaned in to being the inverse of The Return of the Jedi. Instead of Luke refusing to kill Vader and not succumbing to the Dark Side, it should have been Rey succumbing to the Dark Side, and going all Dark Empire, joining Palpatine and wrecking shit while Kylo is off somewhere dealing with his inner turmoil. During the climax of the movie, THAT’S when Kylo should have returned to the Light Side. Ben Solo should have brought back Rey from the Dark Side and together they should have taken down Palpatine and the Knights of Ren.
While we’re at it, the Knights of Ren… awesome name, cool character designs, but completely wasted because they were never fleshed out. Just another example of wasted potential in this trilogy.
And it shouldn’t have been Han who saved Ben, it should have been LEIA.
Again, we’ll probably never know what the original plan for The Rise of Skywalker was, if they even had one, but it should have been Leia who brought Ben back. I guess that was impossible with Carrie Fisher dying, but that would have had a much stronger emotional impact. I just never bought Ben’s return to the Light Side. It seemed to come out of nowhere. Plot Device Ex Machina. If there had been a plan, they could have been building towards that moment from the second movie, with Kylo rebelling against Palpatine and showing cracks in his Dark Side armor while Rey is doing the opposite, succumbing to the Dark Side.
Speaking of moments with no emotional resonance, Leia’s death was like a minor plot detail and should have had more impact. I don’t know what they could have done differently given Carrie Fisher’s unexpected death, but I was hoping for more. Likewise, Rey’s “death” and Kylo’s death had no emotional impact on me. Generally speaking, I didn’t care about anything in the movie that was going on because everything was going by so fast and I felt like I was watching a summary of a movie, not an actual movie. The Rise of Skywalker had so much plot to go through, so many things to rehabilitate from The Last Jedi, that it never stood still even for a moment. It never stopped and let you catch your breath or soak in what was happening onscreen. It was just a mad rush from Plot Event A to Plot Event B to Plot Event C, etc. I felt like I was watching a Star Wars movie on speed.
Other things I didn’t like… a quick summary:
Don’t introduce new major characters in the final movie of a trilogy. I have no idea who that woman Bounty Hunter who Poe was flirting with was. I have no idea who that former Stormtrooper that Finn was with was. They seemed cool, I guess, but I didn’t care about either of them because I didn’t know them. I loved the idea of Finn meeting up with other former Stormtroopers. That’s a great idea! Introduce that concept in Episode VIII and have it pay off in Episode IX, not drop it in there randomly.
I hated the Finn and Rose storyline in The Last Jedi. I hated everything about it, the casino world, the horse racing, even Benicio Del Toro’s character, but I liked Kelly Marie Tran. But where was she in The Rise of Skywalker? Once again, you have a disconnect between movies. Johnson introduces a character in VIII and then Abrams basically sidelines her in IX because he doesn’t like her. Rose should have played the role of the other former Stormtrooper in The Rise of Skywalker. The movie should have built on her relationship with Finn. But nope, we’re going to basically ignore and do over everything that Rian Johnson did. That makes for crappy storytelling and a crappy movie.
Oh, where did all those other ships come from at the end? I mean come on! Lando and Chewie fly off to get “help” and suddenly come back with tons of other people? What happened? Where did they go? Who did they get? Give me something! That’s just lazy and terrible storytelling.
I know I’m in the vast minority about this, but basically a lot of the reasons why I didn’t enjoy The Rise of Skywalker are the same reasons why I absolutely hated Rogue One. I didn’t care about any of the characters. Their triumphs, their failures, and their deaths meant nothing to me because in the Rise of Skywalker because I was never emotionally invested in them. The last movie did a terrible job at character development Like I wrote earlier, it’s in such a mad rush to tell it’s story, to redo everything in Episode VIII that it doesn’t take any time for the quiet moments in between the action sequences. Episodes VII, VIII, and IX weren’t as bad as Rogue One, but The Rise of Skywalker suffered from its frantic, almost manic pace, and the tonal shifts from the previous movies.
Overall, The Rise of Skywalker is just wasted potential for me. It’s the ultimate WHAT IF movie. What If Disney had an actual fucking plan for this trilogy. What If the story had been somewhat cohesive and they could have built on the previous movies instead of trying to cram two movie’s worth of plot into one movie. What If Carrie Fisher hadn’t died.
To be honest, I’m just glad it’s over. The entire premise of this third trilogy was flawed to begin with. Everyone aged 40 some years but nothing changed. Give me new stories unencumbered by the past. Give me a continuation of the story, with new characters, not some half-assed retread. For FUCK’s sake re-establish the Jedi Order so the movies don’t have to be about the Skywalker Lineage. Open the Force to everyone. Bring back the Sith, and not just two of them. Star Wars has always been Dark versus Light, Good versus Evil, Jedi versus Sith. Give me that! You want to tell stories about something other than the Solos and the Skywalkers? Then EXPAND the fucking universe to do that!
What a colossal fucking waste.
This is because there had been these moments so far:
Leia is dead! Lol, kidding. (previous movie)
Palpatine is dead! Lol, kidding.
Kylo Ren is dead when his ship crashes in the desert! Lol, kidding.
Chewbacca is dead! Lol, kidding.
C3PO is dead! His mind is wiped! Lol, kidding.
Kylo Ren is dead, stabbed by Rey! Lol, kidding.
Kylo Ren is dead, fallen down a hole! Lol, kidding.
Rey is dead! Lol, kidding.
Kylo Ren is dead! Oh… he actually is?
It’s really hard to have any death make an impact on you, emotionally, when every time so far you’ve been told: lol, kidding.
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The pacing of episode 9 was definitely too fast. They also definitely didn’t have a plan. But the original trilogy didn’t have a plan either.
Star Wars is largely inspired by the serials of olden times. Serials never had a plan. They made up each episode as they went along like a soap opera. It’s a relatively recent development to try to make a cohesive and consistent universe with a longer story arc.
Although I have many other criticisms, I actually like that Star Wars stuck to its roots in this regard.
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I agree to some extent, but I also think that this third trilogy was much more disconnected than the original trilogy.
Lucas might not have had a plan for the original trilogy, but at least he was directing all three movies and the people helping him didn’t hate the previous movies. The story was largely coherent and a continuation of the previous movie.
Imagine if in Return of the Jedi they were suddenly like “Just kidding, Darth Vader ISN’T Luke’s father.” Imagine if they were like, oh, Han Solo was frozen in carbonite? Well, we don’t actually like that idea so hand waving he’s free and we’re going to pretend that never happened.
Episodes VII, VIII, and IX not only didn’t have a plan, they directly contradicted and undercut the narrative of each other.
The three movies in the original trilogy had three different directors.
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Correct. My mistake. But my overall point still stands. While George Lucas may not have directed Empire and Jedi, he was still in charge and involved.
Kathleen Kennedy and Jason McGatlin were in charge of and involved in every episode of the newest trilogy.
Why do B-wings only exist in the 3rd movie of the original trilogy and the new one :-p
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This is the least effective way to kill someone in a galaxy far far away, to be fair. Palpatine even said “you’ll fall like I did” or something like that!
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Only Fake death I thought was real was the Chewie one, cause they were on a old trilogy character kill fest in this trilogy :-p C3PO they telegraph that R2 has a backup before they even wipe him, C3PO just figures R2’s memory banks are bonkers.
Beyond that none of the other possible death moments registered like that. ESPECIALLY the hole :-p
Also because Chewie is the only character from the Original Trilogy that they killed in the novels.
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I mean I thought that line was pretty clear confirmation of what was to come. 
It definitely felt like the first 30 minutes of Episode 9 were moving in fast-forward. And then they had two plot points that really just served to waste time - the Chewie “death” and capture, and the C3PO memory wipe subplot that led to nothing. Why not just: Find Dagger > Whole team captured > Spy breaks them out? It saves all kinds of time they spent that could have been used to balance out the pacing problems.
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Yeah, as Luke pointed out above, those sequences really just served to make us numb to the consequences of death. And, ultimately, they were completely unnecessary to the plot - like, no really, what does it achieve for us to see Chewie captured only to be rescued several minutes later?
I mean OK, I suppose there’s a point in there about Rey being so fixated on Kylo Ren that she ignores the welfare of the people around her. I get that. I’m all about pointing out the ruinous destructive consequences of the Jedi/Sith conflict. Cool.
But, like, you can have that moment integrated elsewhere. I don’t need an entire 30 minute diversion just to set up a moment of character development. And in fact, had they integrated it elsewhere but kept the running time the same, you could’ve devoted more time to making points like that.
But, nope, gotta have flying stormtroopers on sand bikes.
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