Current Events > Rise of Skywalker had the zaniest pacing ever *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like the film spends literally zero time lingering on any shot or moment with like 2-3 exceptions , so much so that nothing ever has any weight or heft to it. Supposedly emotional moments just float away in the wind. Like big character deaths and perceived deaths are treated with the gravitas of stubbing your toe, its really weird.

I actually liked the palpatine return more than I expected but I hate this thing where they make a big deal about rey being 'a palpatine'. Like just say he created her by manipulating the force or something, there's no value to having him boink her grandmother.

Also like half this film is close ups of reys face expressing mild consternation.

As per, adam driver has like 100x screen presence than everybody else bar Ian McDiarmid. They did that man dirty making him launch his assault in a crewneck lmao. Oh and his death which I mentioned earlier.

So yeah like a 2/5 film. There's some fun moments in the climax but not a particularly well made film otherwise

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i always think of RoS like fast food

it's a good and enjoyable experience when you're eating it since it's satisfying junk

but the more you think about it, the more you realise and reflect on how bad it is. and definitely not good long term/in the bigger picture

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Parappa09 posted...

i always think of RoS like fast food

it's a good and enjoyable experience when you're eating it since it's satisfying junk

but the more you think about it, the more you realise and reflect on how bad it is. and definitely not good long term/in the bigger picture

Perfect anology.

Plus, JJ always has pacing problems with most of his movies and he moved the movie so fast to hide big plotholes. Things just happen.

I remember in TFA when Finn and Poe crash the Tie Fighter on Jakku, Finn is fine and Poe just ....vanishes. Then Poe randomly shows up later in the film on another planet lmao. I remember a bunch of people literally laughed when Poe randomly shows up in TFA.

Parappa09 posted...

i always think of RoS like fast food

it's a good and enjoyable experience when you're eating it since it's satisfying junk

but the more you think about it, the more you realise and reflect on how bad it is. and definitely not good long term/in the bigger picture

I am cool with this thinking but I find that I personally find it harder and harder to just zone out to films a lot of the time these days To me, this just had a lot of glaring annoying stuff and the action parts just left me a bit cold (again, I think Driver brings a lot of good physicality to the role and his action scenes are some of the better ones as a result).

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https://twitter.com/ZFighterAmuro/status/1209248339860107266

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lets try the holdo maneuver

no

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should try the Johnson maneuver and make a good film

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i like how every other post in that twitter thread is someone saying "Bleach"

that manga will have one of the worst legacies of all time

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Akagami_Shanks posted...

i like how every other post in that twitter thread is someone saying "Bleach"

that manga will have one of the worst legacies of all time

Lol its such a perfect comparison

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I hate how they set up that last line too lmao. Like it's so unnatural for that woman to say REY WHO.

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You know Ellie we really are the last of us

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Freddie_Mercury posted...

lets try the holdo maneuver

no

If that was the literal line in the movie, I would respect it.

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The movie felt like Abrams had to take all the abandoned notes that would have been scattered across an entirely different movie and jam them all into this one to make it work. It felt... not rushed, but overly packed.

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Still better than The Last Jedi.

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XXmiznatorXX posted...

Plus, JJ always has pacing problems with most of his movies and he moved the movie so fast to hide big plotholes. Things just happen.

this is true

the thing i hated most about RoS is how jj scrubbed the existance of TLJ tho. the plotholes were p bad but that was such a bad move on his part

NinjaBreakfast posted...

I am cool with this thinking but I find that I personally find it harder and harder to just zone out to films a lot of the time these days To me, this just had a lot of glaring annoying stuff and the action parts just left me a bit cold (again, I think Driver brings a lot of good physicality to the role and his action scenes are some of the better ones as a result).

it does feel like a weirdly rushed and hollow film

also i didn't mention it but i love driver in this too. but mad how they did domhnall gleeson bad

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My biggest issue was that it felt like they wasted Palpatine. Dude is like barely in it for more than 5-6 minutes and lost like 30 seconds after hitting new heights with his power.

Felt like Super Perfect Cell lol.

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Parappa09 posted...

the thing i hated most about RoS is how jj scrubbed the existance of TLJ tho. the plotholes were p bad but that was such a bad move on his part

yeah some of that stuff was really weird. even relatively minor stuff like kylo reforging his helmet only to forget about it like 30 minutes later. what's the point of that? people will bitch and moan about inconsistencies and characterisations in TLJ but like...how is that not infinitely worse?

i kinda take @IShall_Run_Amok 's point above too: you almost wish they committed more to it at times if that's the route they were gonna go

Parappa09 posted...

but mad how they did domhnall gleeson bad

i feel his character was kinda under-utilised throughout the 3 films but yeah. again, another moment that was focused on for about 5 seconds and served no purpose and carried no weight.

my parents liked it though!

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NinjaBreakfast posted...

yeah some of that stuff was really weird. even relatively minor stuff like kylo reforging his helmet only to forget about it like 30 minutes later. what's the point of that? people will bitch and moan about inconsistencies and characterisations in TLJ but like...how is that not infinitely worse?

it's coz jj forced two films into one while also scrubbing out the values about killing the past which was set up in the TLJ

i mean let's not forget that finn never told rey what he wanted to tell her (twice) that they built up throughout the film. how do you get to the stage of a general release without wrapping up that part of the film?

NinjaBreakfast posted...

my parents liked it though!

is your gf a star wars fan?

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i maintain the biggest problem with this trilogy was not, in fact, a lack of 'planning' but rather the tethering of it to the original trilogy in order to capitalise on brand/cast loyalty and nostalgia. they should have had the strength of conviction to do something original or different. instead, we get a weird retread of past ideas with a few mostly impotent cameos (Lando in this one spoke and acted like a dude wheeled outta the retirement home for the day lmao). it also totally kneecapped the overarching story/threat cos everybody's just like...how tf is there a new empire already???

Parappa09 posted...

i mean let's not forget that finn never told rey what he wanted to tell her (twice) that they built up throughout the film. how do you get to the stage of a general release without wrapping up that part of the film?

also i really found it bizarre how rey is like "aite luke imma do the same thing you did on the same island you did it...despite me witnessing your entire arc first hand about how hiding away from the world was in fact bad and how you sacrificed yourself to 'the force' to reinvigorate the resistance". again, why

Parappa09 posted...

is your gf a star wars fan?

she does not give a single fuck about it and tbh i am glad!

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I'm curious where you guys think they could have taken things after TLJ without also being a problem.

So what? Kylo Ren is the big bad in the end and she either brings him back to the light or kills him? How would that be much different from Vader?

At this point, the whole "going into the Force" and "will of Whills" original plan that George Lucas had for the ST would have been taking way more risks.


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The movie was fine! Stop criticizing it, it was fine!

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After the ending of 8, where there are now few enough rebels or resistance or whatever to fit on the Falcon, the intro scene was like "is this really necessary" I mean they already logically couldn't win. What difference do a billion Star Destroyers even make?

Then it has that awful habit of doing everything backwards. It just felt like JJ was sitting there the whole time going "Ha the audience is going to think this is a continuity error until we resolve it four scenes later! I'm such a great troll!" Why is Rey not on the Falcon? How did the rebels get to Jungle planet? Why is Leia qualified to train her as a Jedi? Hyuk, wait and find out!

And the lightsabers killed me. When did Rey get the lightsaber back after giving it to Leia and saying "someday I'll earn this lol"? How does she have the blue one when it exploded? What happened to the green one?

C3PO was so dang bad. He makes that same stupid joke about nobody caring about his safety over and over like he hears the audience not laughing and keeps repeating it thinking he just wasn't heard. He had a couple of funny moments but for the most part he just made me furious every time he spoke. And why did they even make him a major character? Why give him development all the sudden in the ninth freaking installment, only to undo it via memory wipes? Did they really think anybody was going to fall for the "R2's memory banks suck" line when the entire OT couldn't have happened if that were true? Why insert a random ultradark joke in the very moment that was supposed to be his point of no return? Worst character in the whole series, seriously.

It also refuses to follow through on anything. Kills Chewie only to unkill him in the very next scene. (Which, why couldn't Rey tell he wasn't dead immediately?) Mem wipes C3 only to unwipe him a few minutes later. Claims Emperor will possess whoever kills him, then Rey kills him and it doesn't happen.

Why did Rey leave Kylo's lightsaber with him? How small is the galaxy that they can cross it in like two minutes?

Why did they choose to make her staff association something holding her back instead of her own unique twist? They even use the double-blade for evil Rey. She doesn't even go double-blade when she makes her own lightsaber at the end (in fairness, it could have just been cut off in the shot). What was the training scene where she keeps missing with the lightsaber but lands a hit with the staff even supposed to establish, then?

But at least it had decent structure, so there's that. It at least fulfils the minimum requirements to be competent.

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InfinityMonster posted...

I'm curious where you guys think they could have taken things after TLJ without also being a problem.

straight off the bat imma say i'm not a fan of this kind of argument cos it puts some obligation on us as observers to fill in the blanks for a whole team of professional writers lol. but i will say...

• is this strictly a problem with TLJ? did TFA not set that course initially by having him be the mysterious, masked apprentice to a monstrous master figure?
• not my own idea as it was something i read on twitter but i think kylo could easily have split into a third 'faction' of sorts. the first order is a giant fascistic wannabe-empire, you would think they don't live or die solely on the back of kylo leaving them. they have a whole evil bureaucracy. hell, they basically function that way in this as is with the emperor and his guy. why even leave it that late?
• on further contemplation, I have begun to really resent this idea that TFA 'set things up' and TLJ 'ruined' them. TFA set nothing up bar a bunch of mystery boxes. you could literally fill in any plot in the world around them. you could have rey embark on an epic stamp collecting adventure across the galaxy and still have JJ's various hanging ideas get answered in much the same manner as they would in any other wider scenario. the empire has become more powerful, the resistance is small but has regained a sense of hope at the end of TLJ. how is that hard to build a climax around? hell, you could argue the ROS endgame space battle is a very natural progression of this albeit one which the build up is ruined by the pacing of the film.

not related to that post per se but somebody (remind me if it was you, whoever you are!) was posting a 'TLJ explained' video on here recently and it was a good reminder that kylo's ideals in TLJ aren't meant to be taken as gospel or necessarily correct and that his 'burn everything to the ground' mantra is destructive and chaotic, as a sort of also-bad counterpoint to the endless tethering to the past. again, i think there's plenty to work with there in terms of a conflicted character but it ends up boiling down to a very straightforward redemption arc. this is a much bigger missed opportunity than anything from TFA not used in TLJ!

like man the helmet thing is definitely merchandising related lmao


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InfinityMonster posted...

I'm curious where you guys think they could have taken things after TLJ without also being a problem.

I actually thought one of its strengths was how gracefully it recovered after episode 8.

Her parents were nobodies but I never said anything about her grandparents! Poe is struggling to fill the role of leader, which makes sense because he was a terrible pick for it and he learns things from other characters and leans on other major characters to develop into the role. Oh and we didn't mention it before but Leia had Force training so she actually didn't pull Force powers out of nowhere afterall!

8 tried its hardest to screw everything up, and to your point, it was a tough mess to follow, but 9 handled it far better than I expected.

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DevsBro posted...

how gracefully it recovered after episode 8.

Her parents were nobodies but I never said anything about her grandparents!

This was xtremely bad and on the nose

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NinjaBreakfast posted...

on further contemplation, I have begun to really resent this idea that TFA 'set things up' and TLJ 'ruined' them. TFA set nothing up bar a bunch of mystery boxes. you could literally fill in any plot in the world around them

Its absolutely true, though. TLJ couldve filled in the gaps with anything, but instead it turned them all into dead ends.

Its fine if you like the movie, but if you really cant see how it shut down most plot points introduced in TFA then thats some serious blind fanboyism.

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Freddie_Mercury posted...

lets try the holdo maneuver

no

There were so many better counters to that, ranging from 'we don't have enough ships for that to make a difference' to 'umm...you first.'

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A bunch of new characters introduced solely
for merchandising and setting up Disney+ shows.

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Did you all like that Sith runic dagger that has its edges shaped to resemble some wreckage of the Death Star and perfectly aligns at a certain distance at a certain spot that Rey happens to be at?

Was it an ancient dagger because that plot hole would be wonderful.

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iPhone_7 posted...

Did you all like that Sith runic dagger that has its edges shaped to resemble some wreckage of the Death Star and perfectly aligns at a certain distance at a certain spot that Rey happens to be at?

Was it an ancient dagger because that plot hole would be wonderful.

The certain spot she happened to be at was pretty convenient, but I preferred that to a montage of them sailing around it for years trying to find the exact spot so I let it go.

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DevsBro posted...

The certain spot she happened to be at was pretty convenient, but I preferred that to a montage of them sailing around it for years trying to find the exact spot so I let it go.

I would have preferred a different plot device to move the story forward.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeK10F6iA8E

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IShall_Run_Amok posted...

If that was the literal line in the movie, I would respect it.

Bro, it literally is.

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Let the past die, kill it if you have to

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for all the bitching about snoke being offed, there's no way his continued presence in this film would've been anything other than a stand in for palpatine and equally cheap from a storytelling pov

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There were so many potential anime comparisons.

How if you are not a member of one of a few families/races, you are irrelevant to the endgame and have to sit and watch the relevant people fight.

Beam spam and reversal to kill the OP villain at the end.

Nakama/past generations helping the hero kill the villain.

People dying or seemingly dying all the time only to not actually be dead or to be revived.


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yeah I wonder did JJ et al watch a shonen and think "yeah nobody has seen one of these before "

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Really boring movie visually too. Seems like every scene was a medium shot bar one or two

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https://twitter.com/DavidMann95/status/1211068326933401600

lol

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another thing i really didnt get (and again which was given about 10 seconds screen time in any case so fuck you, audience) was whatever it was leia did to ben in his fight with rey. on initial viewing it basically looks like she distracts him in order for him to get stabbed lmao, which seems a weird way to save your son!

but then it turns out one of the writers came out with this bullshit:

https://twitter.com/3rd_Option/status/1211685733259304960

also funny to think of the backlash to leia being force sensitive in TLJ (i accept at least part of this was to do with the visual representation tbf) and how this has abated for ROS with the inclusion of a split second scene of her training years ago. like i honestly think they could've avoided all fan backlash for TLJ by including like a 2 second scene of that, having another one where somebody says reys a palpatine or something lmao. these people want nothing of consequence, just x answer to x theory ad infinitum .

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So his mom mind raped him then died.

Yeah....

...

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The movie to me felt like 1.5 movies squeezed into 2 hours. The whole Palpatine reveal should have been in the 8th movie.

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