[jadziadax8]

Hey, lowering expectations did the trick. I had an enjoyable time at the cinema with my spouse and spawn. Yes, there was a lot of fan service, and yes I found the frantic scene jumping to be annoying, but they hit me in the feels at the right times, so that was alright.

I have one major disappointment, though -

no beautiful Jedi babies.

*sigh*

[Iron Prime]

It was fair. I'll give it a B. It wasn't a perfect movie, but I'm willing to give it some slack because they had to try to make 7 and 8 jive at least a little.

Important lessons here about pre-planning if you are focused on having a trilogy....

[monty42]

Important lessons here about pre-planning if you are focused on having a trilogy....

Yeah. If this was the first time in movie history somebody's tried to make a trilogy, yes...

Errrrrrmmm yeah we could plan out things in advance OR we can just make stuff up along the way and see where it goes...

I mean even the dumbest of the dumb... oh never mind

[Fritzinger]

Thank you Vlad for lowering my expectations. It was fine.

It was headed towards the best Star Wars movie ever if they had chopped off the last 45 minutes.

Fighting on the Death Star in the sea was magnificent. But there was no need to miraculously have the whole galaxy come to their rescue or invent more force technobabble (diads wtf?).

As it was it was mostly fun and a bit better than the ending the trilogy deserved.

[Faithful Reader]

We live in a world where they will hold back Sonic the Hedgehog to fix its problems, but not Star Wars.

Let that sink in for a moment.

[AllenGould]

We live in a world where they will hold back Sonic the Hedgehog to fix its problems, but not Star Wars.

That's easy to explain - no-one can agree on what (if any) "problems" there were. That's why everyone involved is throwing shade at other folks - "oh, the Emperor was always going to come back" vs. "JJ made that up", while there's allegedly now a 3-hr "Abrams edit" that is all better, etc etc etc.

It honestly doesn't sound like anyone involved was happy with that movie.

(For the record, I liked TLJ, because it set up a great question that could have been resolved here - 4-5-6: the Dark Side are full of assholes; 1-2-3: oh, turns out the Light Side were pretty bad at their jobs too; 7-8-9: so... now what?)

[HoodieDM]

RoS was far better than TLJ. TLJ is and will continue to be the death of the sequel Trilogy. RoS at least FELT like a SW movie. You had 3 friends (FINALLY) go on a space adventure getting into trouble, rescuing someone, and beating the bad guys at the end when all else fails.

The way VII, VIII, & IX should have been, was a focus on our OG cast and slightly introduce Rey, Poe, Finn, & BB-8. Then they should have made a new trilogy with those 4 new characters and THAT could have been Ep9's story. Too many characters over these last 3 films with too little character development or recap of why our OG cast are the way they are now after a 20+ year hiatus (in story).

X= find the blade
XI = find the Sith GPS
XII = find Palpatine and defeat him

But Disney tried to forego OG cast and do their own thing to profit as quickly as possible rather than develop a story and cast that could have lasted for decades (i.e. MCU Infinity Saga).

The only real complaint I had with Ep9 was it was just too quick paced. If they had added in 10 mins and just had a few scenes of quiet time, reflection, let Williams' score play so we can catch our breath, I think I'd liked it more. But overall, it did it's job. It wasn't a cluster fuck like TLJ. So Im happy.

Now give me Mando S2, Clone Wars S7, Kenobi series, and Rebels 2 (streaming 2020 on D+)!!!

~D

[Armus]

If I could sum up my experience with RoS in one word it would be: Clarifying.

It allowed me to figure out where I stand with the Star Wars universe and it's here: I stopped being emotionally invested in Star Wars circa 1998.

That's right. Nothing added in the last 20+ years has really moved the needle for me.

Give me the Special Edition original trilogy, which was a great facelift, and the Zahn books (Thrawn Trilogy for sure + Spectre of the Past and Vision of the Future I suppose) and I'm good.

How did RoS get me to this conclusion you ask? Anything that hit me in the feels had a tie to the above, and everything else, well, at best didn't hit me in the feels, and at worst made me roll my eyes at a shallow rehash.

Even the original characters didn't do much for me. Luke has been an old whiny douchebag this entire trilogy, and Han and Leia's story is really sad after leaving RotJ on a high optimistic note. Nate said something similar in the TFA thread a couple years ago and now that I've fully processed this trilogy, I've come to the conclusion that he was right.

Two things that did work for me were

Lando's Return - Billy Dee Williams still has it.

and - the best part of the whole movie for me -

Wedge!

Why were those the high notes? Because it took me back to a time when I cared about the story. And there was just enough of that to allow me to differentiate the few grains of emotional wheat from the large chunks of meaningless chaff.

So I guess in that sense, I'm grateful to JJ Abrams for giving me that clarity and emotional closure. I still enjoy watching eps IV-VI and reading Zahn (and I'll definitely be giving the new Thrawn book a read as well), and while there's popcorn eating fun to be had in the newer movies - especially Solo where Woody Harrelson steals every scene he's in and carries that movie far beyond what it would've been without him - I'm content with where Star Wars ended up in the late 20th Century before that prequel mess.

Maybe I'm a product of my time, but that's ok too.

[AllenGould]

The way VII, VIII, & IX should have been, was a focus on our OG cast and slightly introduce Rey, Poe, Finn, & BB-8.

Eh... that doesn't quite match the generational aspect - most of the 1-2-3 characters don't follow through to 4-5-6, after all. (And while I think that 7-8-9 suffered from Carrie Fisher's death, I *also* think they're idiots for not looking at the three actors and thinking "Maybe we should do Carrie first...")

For future films, a friend in town has a great pitch - get Billy Dee Williams and Donald Glover in a movie, which has old Lando in a cantina telling stories for drinks about his grand old adventures (flashing back to young Lando)... except that old Lando is a terribly unreliable narrator and is clearly embellishing the story/voiceover compared to what you're seeing actually happen.

[Iron Prime]

The way VII, VIII, & IX should have been, was a focus on our OG cast and slightly introduce Rey, Poe, Finn, & BB-8.

Eh... that doesn't quite match the generational aspect - most of the 1-2-3 characters don't follow through to 4-5-6, after all. (And while I think that 7-8-9 suffered from Carrie Fisher's death, I *also* think they're idiots for not looking at the three actors and thinking "Maybe we should do Carrie first...")

For future films, a friend in town has a great pitch - get Billy Dee Williams and Donald Glover in a movie, which has old Lando in a cantina telling stories for drinks about his grand old adventures (flashing back to young Lando)... except that old Lando is a terribly unreliable narrator and is clearly embellishing the story/voiceover compared to what you're seeing actually happen.

Curse you for telling me this: For I shall forever be disappointed every time there is an announcement for a new Star Wars movie or show that isn't this....

[AllenGould]

Curse you for telling me this: For I shall forever be disappointed every time there is an announcement for a new Star Wars movie or show that isn't this....

I know, right? When he told me I had largely the same reaction - how are they not writing this?

I mean, you could double down and add the Solos (and lean into the "tall tale one-up-man-ship"), but at that point it should be a miniseries.

[Andrew]

(For the record, I liked TLJ, because it set up a great question that could have been resolved here - 4-5-6: the Dark Side are full of assholes; 1-2-3: oh, turns out the Light Side were pretty bad at their jobs too; 7-8-9: so... now what?)

This is the best defense of TLJ I've ever heard.

[AllenGould]

Meanwhile, had a date night on the weekend and my spouse decided that they wanted to see the Star Wars...

I actually found it rather bland. Obviously my expectations were lowered, but I didn't find it bad. Just... not very good? And to put blame where blame due, the actors are all working their asses off here but are being deeply failed by the production. (To the production's credit, at least the actors are getting to act, unlike the prequel "I think there was a hint of emotion there, could you repeat the line and be just a bit *more* wooden?")

[SudenKapala]

Which prequel did you mean there, Allan?
(If you mean ep.8, I think I was so angry about the rehash, plot and character horrors, that I wasn't able to notice anything else. See my various rants elsewhere. )

[Armus]

Which prequel did you mean there, Allan?
(If you mean ep.8, I think I was so angry about the rehash, plot and character horrors, that I wasn't able to notice anything else. See my various rants elsewhere. )

I read it as eps I-III. And he's not wrong.