#arguably one of the best parts of both TLJ & TROS. no i will not be taking feedback at this time.

[armoralor]

Rose Tico Icons from The Last Jedi + The Rise of Skywalker ✰ reminder that T*RFs can fuck off, only interact if you love trans & nonbinary folks ♡ more below!

if there is a different pride flag you'd like to see or a different pose over a different colour/background, feel free to send me an ask and i'll try to make it 💖

[hero-with-fear]

TROS Thoughts (((SPOILERS)))

Last chance! Go no further if you haven’t seen it.

Ben Solo: I’ve seen a lot of outrage on the internet about Ben’s fate and I have to say...it’s the best outcome that he could have had. Let’s look at his story logically--he’s responsible for the murder of thousands, he’s the last of his family, he personally destroyed the place Jedi have called home ever since his grandfather destroyed the place the Jedi called home......and then he redeemed himself by coming to his senses and realizing what he had to do. He stepped up, became the boy we all knew he had it in him to be, and died giving life to the last of the Jedi.  I loved it. And let’s stop and be real for a second: there was no other fate for him. Ever since he started his murder spree, there could be no other outcome. It’s the same with Anakin: if Anakin had come to his senses after purging the Temple and found the light again, he STILL would have had to answer for the deaths of thousands. Ben would have been either locked away or executed because he would have to accept his part in the crimes of the First Order. No amount of troubled past would ultimately justify the terrible choices he’d made. It had to be that way. I leaned over to my sister after his turn to the light and said: “Okay...my idiot sandwich grandson isn’t an idiot sandwich anymore. I officially claim him.” 

Rey: My girl. She did it. I’m so proud. And that’s coming from someone who spends a lot of time in Anakin’s brain. She isn’t The Chosen One...and the movie conveys that fact. If anything, she’s a representation of The Daughter from the Mortis Arc of the Clone Wars. Rey is a balm. Her destiny was to heal the wound the Skywalker family left in the galaxy and boy did she! And she didn’t do it alone! She had the legacy of centuries of Jedi behind her and Anakin Skywalker’s grandson to act as a balance (arguably, the embodiment of The Son). Rey is the embodiment of faith. She doesn’t give herself to her fears, wants and desires; she does what she feels the Force is guiding her to do. She is not OP because her lineage provided her with a strong connection to the Force. But even without that, Rey is still Rey Nobody. She didn’t need Palpatine’s revelation to get to the place she was at the end of the film. She got there herself. She chose to not be afraid and gave her life to end the last remnant of real darkness in the immediate timeline. She is someone that young Jedi in the Prequels era would have read about in their studies at the Temple...someone that gave themselves to the Force to end evil. I loved her role in the film and I love her. Baby girl.

Finn & Poe: Thank goodness for screen time. John and Oscar actually had a dynamic in this film to play off of and the screen time to do it. They both performed stunts of heroism and had individual characteristics that didn’t just make them secondary characters to Rey...something TLJ suffered from. They got to be people in their own right. The complaints that I keep seeing about them seems to be focused on shipping, the trio aspect, and representation arguments. Once again, they felt like people living their lives in the Star Wars universe. I have no issue with anything they got to do. (But John Boyega needs a franchise that puts him on the poster for a change.)

The Force: Another aspect that keeps getting battled around is the Force use in the movie. I’m not gonna lie, when she and (at the time) Kylo were playing tug-of-war with a shuttle I was like UMMMMMMM EXCUSE ME. But then I gave it some thought and forgave it because a few things dawned on me. First of all, the duality of Rey and Kylo’s connection made some of the mad Force connection plausible. But what really made sense to me was that Rey and Ben are using their common skills in a galaxy where balance has been brought to the Force. It further solidified Anakin’s place in the universe and spoke to the time that has passed since the other films happened. Something @another-happy-landing pointed out to me: The Force was out of balance in the prequels, was seeking to be used in the original trilogy, and was simply with the protagonists in the sequels. It’s excellent narrative gold because it makes the Force exactly what we’ve always been told it is: all life bound together. It’s something that grows and changes with those it interacts with. It adapts with the life put into the galaxy. And now that a bunch of big names have become one with it, it’s incredibly accessible and powerful. Loved it.

Clone Palpatine & The Chosen One Argument: The thing calling itself Palpatine was the Force ghost entity left by the original Palpatine and a clone engineered by Sith followers and adherents. It’s something from Star Wars deep lore and was part of the EU until Disney killed the EU. It wasn’t a plot device conjured up by J.J. It’s something that’s existed for years, some old school SW nonsense. I was instantly on board because of that. Something people need to realize: the Sith was broken in this movie. It was trying to return, but the Rule of Two had been broken by Anakin Skywalker. The remnant of Palpatine was devoid of strength until he claimed the life Force of Ben and Rey. So Rey putting an end to him and the remaining Sith remnants wasn’t her bringing balance to the Force, it was her doing what Ben couldn’t do: finishing what Anakin started. She was, in essence, scrubbing the ash and soot from the scene of the fire Anakin started and subsequently put out. It honestly made me feel like what Anakin did was respected and solidified. All Rey did was put an end to the dying tendrils of the dark trying to rise. It’s beautiful...and adding Anakin asking her to bring balance as he did was icing on the cake.

All in all, I loved this movie. It hit all the notes I was hoping for and I left at peace. I don’t understand the vitriol, but I welcome discussion. There ya have it.

[misscrawfords]

4, 5, 16, 18 :)

4. Do you outline before you start writing? If so, how far do you stray from that outline?

I tend not to but I sometimes do. For the two long stories I actually finished, Harry Potter and the Unbreakable Link and Consolation Prize, I got part way through, knew where I was going and then wrote a chapter-by-chapter brief plan for the rest... and then stuck to it. There might be a correlation between doing that and finishing these fics. Huh. Who knew.

5. What is the perfect environment for you to write in?

My laptop at my table with music playing and nothing else I ought to be doing.

16. What is your most underrated fic?

I know I sound like a broken record, but Consolation Prize. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written and I’m genuinely afraid I will never write anything as good as that. It’s always made me a little sad that readers liked University Challenge more. And like, fair play to them and I’m pleased for that and it’s not like people didn’t like CP, but I guess I just feel so strongly about it. I got really upset once upon a time about it not winning various awards and only being placed. I defined my entire idea of personal success by how popular that story was and it had to win. Otherwise I was just getting a consolation prize! :P I think that’s really unhealthy but it’s how I felt. I cried for such a long time when it didn’t win the most rewards and come first in its categories. (Yes, I needed a thicker skin, but that’s the way it was.) And I still want everyone in the world to read it!

18. What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene.

Moving away from Downton, here’s the bathroom scene from Chapter 11 of Growing Beyond.

Rey has gone to her school’s production of Anastasia with the intention of loving it because it was her favourite film back in the orphanage but instead she’s horribly triggered by seeing it for the first time in years. At the interval, she dashes out of the hall to have a breakdown in the toilets.

This is GB’s version of the cave scene from TLJ and is a key moment for both Rey in the film and for Rey in GB. It’s a real turning point for her because it forces her to confront her past and her anxieties about her identity, state what she most wants “show me my parents” and then put her on the track to actually confiding in Ben. In the movie it’s also rife with symbolism connected to the heroine’s journey as she plunges into a dark hole representing return to the womb and the figures in the mirror that are apparently her parents but really look like her and Ben and which end up being her own reflection. Finally, she emerges wet and reborn.

When considering how to transfer this extremely weird and highly symbolic scene to a “realist” modern AU, I tried to find a way of doing it in a way that didn’t jar with the setting while also paying homage to some of the symbolism of the original. Mirrors and water are easy to fit in, so a bathroom made sense from a practical point of view, but also from a symbolic one. The ladies’ toilets are often a place of refuge - who hasn’t cried in a toilet cubicle before? - and they’re also a private place that the rest of the world can’t intrude in, especially men, so (and I know I sound utterly pretentious here and I am half joking with this level of interpretation) you could argue that they are a distinctly feminine location. (Yes, that is arguably absolute bs lbr.)

At first in the bathroom, Rey is desperately trying to hold on and not have a breakdown. She knows this is not the time or place - there are other audience members coming in and out while she sits on the floor of her cubicle. All the while, she’s aware of water - she’s splashed her face, taps are running, toilets are being flushed. Part of this scene is building up Rey’s anxiety so that she can let it loose on her bike ride through the rain afterwards. In the movie, Rey is drenched when she emerges from the cave - she’s not going to get drenched in the toilet, so this is after all a precursor to her mad night ride through the storm.

The scene also introduces a hyperfocus on Rey’s hands. 

She raised her head from her arms and stared at her hands, still trembling slightly. Her fingernails were uneven and bitten, her fingers red and chapped from winter cold. She stared at them with peculiar intensity as if she had never seen them before.

This ties into both Rey’s later questioning of who she is, where had her DNA come from, who actually made her, but is also picked up later in Chapter 12 when she’s met Ben in the pub and she doesn’t know what to do with her hands. And of course, leads up to the moment when they touch hands together. So Rey’s hands are important in this chapter and the next.

She emerges from the cubicle and then surveys herself in the mirror, just as she does in the cave, disassociating quite a bit, a way for me to both try to enter into her mental state and also to parallel the extreme weirdness of the original cave scene. As she looks into the mirror, she questions her identity. Rey in the cave says, “Show me my parents!” Rey in the bathroom doesn’t directly say that (because that would be weird) but her thoughts are going along a different line.

This is also where I bring in Rey’s role as a teacher and how that’s tied to her identity in this story. Obviously that’s not in the movie, but it works surprisingly well. Rey reflects on how as a teacher she knows that parental background affects a student’s development - but what about when they have no parents? The connection between Rey and Ben as teachers moulding the next generation and the effects on them of their own parents and teachers and mentor figures is one that works very well in this story. It is named after Yoda’s wonderful quote, after all: “That is the curse of all masters. We are what they grow beyond.” Rey and Ben as teachers must equip their children to grow beyond them but they themselves are unable to move beyond their own pasts and how other people have defined them.

Children is also a theme in SW (or it was until TROS decided it was blind and couldn’t read basic symbolism) and TLJ ended with the image of the force sensitive child. Wish I knew where that was going to go. Anyway, at this point in GB, one of Rey’s students enter the bathroom and she’s forced to act normal. The student is called Daisy. This student is therefore a reflection of or perhaps a hidden part of Rey herself. Daisy is full of optimism and enjoyment of the life she’s leading and full of hope for the future. She confides to Rey that she’s really enjoying her Physics lessons and that’s directly because of Rey’s teaching. Rey encourages her to come along to Science Club, thus expanding her interest still further. Daisy has appeared out of a magical plot hole like a woodland creature in a fairytale to tell Rey exactly what she most needed to hear - that she is doing good work, that she is important, that she can change lives, that she needs to stick at what she’s doing because it is really important. Daisy is also perhaps a reflection of who Rey could have been if she had had encouragement at that age herself, someone who could be herself and have potential that others saw and have someone who believed in her and she’s a sign of Rey’s future importance in leading the next generation (just as she is presented in the films) - how many more Daisys will there be in her career? And while this story is obviously a Reylo romance, Rey’s journey as a teacher and as a symbolic mother of her people (her role in the films until TROS decided to misunderstand its own canon) is still key to her own personal development.

So there you have it. :P

[kindredsoulsoftimesofold]

Incoming TROS rant

yes, there will be spoilers as I will be breaking down everything I saw tonight. If I manage to type choking on my tears well after the movie finished.

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FINAL WARNING IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS

Let’s start with a few opening words, this rant will indeed be a long one.

ALL THE LEAKS ARE TRUE. And I mean ALL of them. To a T. As soon as I saw the first half was exactly as I’d read, I was crushed. As I knew what was coming. On that note, i was probably the only person in the theatre who was crying like 15-20 minutes before we were supposed to, I’ll get to that in a bit. I’m saving the WORST for last. Let’s break this shit down.

1. The plot is a mess. An actual mess. I feel like every five minutes I was shaking my head and mumbling ‘what kind of nonsense is this’. The breaking of lore or COMMON SENSE really is substantial. But that is definitely not what I cared about, as I already KNEW this even without the leaks. When you can’t get your two directors to FUCKING WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE A COHESIVE STORYLINE it is bound to grasp for straws and make shit up. IT AIN’T NOTHING NEW.

2. Here’s the kicker. THE DIALOGUE WAS SO BAD, it makes Anakin’s AOTC speech seem like a hymn, or poetry or whatever. They CONSTANTLY say what they’re doing, they’re literally reciting the exposition to each other and it comes off as extremely annoying and makes you feel like a toddler. No hate against toddlers, but I’d rather not be one right now. It feels unnatural, forced and STUPID to the point where I would start WISHING for 3PO to come back on screen because Anthony Daniels somehow managed to snag some actually decent lines for once? I love the man, but the droid usually really annoys the crap outta me. He was literally the highlight of the film. Don’t get me started on the stupidity of all of Lando’s lines, poor Billy. Daisy has to stare angrily most of the time so I don’t really care to recall her lines. Adam, my dear Adam, he tries SO HARD to make do with what he was given but even his lines 90% of the time come off as stupid and out of place. Or the worst type in this movie, EXPOSITIONYY. Don’t get me started on Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford. Boys looked like they didn’t sign up for this shit and were literally force choked to be there. I feel you guys, I feel you. ALSO FOR THE LOVE OF THE FORCE THE TIMES THEY REPEATED WORD FOR WORD LINES FROM OTHER MOVIES I WANTED TO SCREAM. Once is too much, THIS MANY TIMES IT IS A FELONY. And it needs to be punished somehow.

3. Let’s get the positives out of the way because there were FEW. The two scenes I actually REALLY enjoyed watching, for different reasons were:

Ben and Palps meeting. The scene was much longer than the clip and SUPER badass. Sheev’s voice echoes, Ben looks fucking cool and the whole scene is GORGEOUS.

The other is when Ben fights as a Jedi in the end. I’ll get to Ben later BELIEVE ME but without overexplaining, he fights with Anakin’s lightsabre, he’s really speedy and is doing all the Jedi spins and whatnot. I fucking ATE THAT UP. Replay that scene forever please CAUSE I LOVED IT. But I was already crying here so we’ll touch more on that later.

To conclude this segment, the visuals were SUPERB, the sound was AMAZING and (some) of the fights were jaw droppingly cool. But that about concludes the positives!

4. I will comment, as I know a lot of people will care even if I don’t particularily. Finn, Poe, Rose and the merry gang aside from our Jedi are reduced to EH this movie. If you thought you’d never miss Rose boy were you wrong. They introduce new characters and expect you to care about them when they SIDELINED the ones they’d hoped you’d care about BEFORE. And it made me care about NO ONE. Not to mention that, sadly, they are ALWAYS reduced to the boring side plot that really isn’t interested or key to much of ANYTHING. Sure they roused the people and all but would’ve been TOAST if Rey didn’t go all Jesus on the fleet. So at the end of the day, you MAY find some enjoyment with the side characters but their lines were some of the worst, you WILL be force fed new people and you might not really enjoy your previous faves here because even I found myself being completely indifferent this time. (I actually really ENJOYED Finn since TFA. He had a compelling storyline and John Boyega was alright. Couldn’t give two wits about him in this movie. Not a single one. But again, I may not be the perfect person to ask if you really,really like any of these characters.

5. Finally, we have arrived to the main event. THE REYLO.

The backbone of this clusterfuck of a new trilogy. The last Skywalker and Palpatine, coming together instead of apart. The arguably BEST actors (legacies aside) Disney managed to get. Now, I will start this off that I didn’t HATE Rey before this movie. I loved her in TFA, enjoyed her less in TLJ but the novelization fixed that. I was BACK ON BOARD to be her number one stan. In this movie, I couldn’t STAND her. Her lines are basically the director walking you through things, her plotline was obviously made last minute so almost none of it makes sense,  I literally wanted to curl up and DIE from cringing so hard every time someone said ‘you’re a Palpatine’. I thought I was looking at a very expensive rendition of terrible fan fiction. (Not to diss fan fiction in any way, you guys will be my heroes after this catastrophe.) ‘Empress Palpatine’, COME THE FUCK ON AND GET OUT WITH THIS SHIT. Bring back crusty old Snoke for crying out loud! Or even HUX! Who got killed off in a second and had three lines of dialogue, not important I guess? Like a great many things I guess, JJ. But, EVEN Palpatine aside, it was great seeing him again and every scene he was in I got chills, who cares that it makes zero sense at this point. Back to reylo.

Ben. Ben Solo Organa Skywalker. The last hope. The final remnant of something I have loved FOREVER. I grew up with Star Wars, like many others just in a different, post prequel era and they are still my favourites. This might sound ridiculous but Star Wars was part of my heart, my happiness. It brought me joy to watch it, read it, fantasize about it and have it in my life when times were dark or miserable. It MEANT something to me, as I am sure many of you will agree. And Ben was part of that. He was part of something that MEANT something to all of us. He was the last line of the characters we all grew up with and loved. The GRANDSON of Anakin, my favourite character of all time. This was their chance to stop the trend that Loki’s death in IW and Daenerys’ death and turn and many others started and STOP killing people who did wrongs. PEOPLE can change, they can grow and they can learn. Hell, to not stray to far from this franchise REY has killed A LOT of people in this movie alone. She DECIMATES the room full of Palpatine’s followers and never blinks an eye. SHE NEARLY KILLS CHEWIE, DOES KILL BEN (for a minute) and SHE DOESN’T NEED TO DIE. Of course she doesn’t but BEN DOESN’T EITHER. After all that YOU JJ, YES YOU, show me that the LAST SKYWALKER has gone through, suffered, alone and frightened. I would’ve ENDED you if you’d suggested killing him off to me, EVER. He was your chance to do a reverse Vader, AS YOU CLAIMED YOU WOULD. To show a character can come back to the light and be worthy of it WITHOUT DYING. You even set it up as such, which is my next and CRUCIAL POINT.

I’ve been a reylo since 2015. Their dynamic has always been fascinating to me and beautiful. I LOVED all the moments in TLJ, LOVED THEM. In this one, every time they force bond (terrible dialogue aside, again) I was happy. I had a hope that she would bring him back from the darkness and he will keep her balanced. WELL, JJ, guess fuck me huh? And anyone with common sense and human decency. JUST WHEN you shove Ben’s turn in my face, you make him talk to Han, you make him strut in to fight alongside Rey in full Ben Solo Jedi mode, hair blown and casually dressed. It was when he runs onto Exegol that I started weeping. Because knowing that he dies as I did, it broke my heart how it was done. You give me the scene where he fights and you give me hope of what his future could’ve been if only you’d listened to reason and done what was supposed to be done. He is chucked into the pit, WHICH MIGHT I ADD WOULD’VE MADE ME MAD IF THAT WAS HIS END BUT WOULD’VE BEEN SOOOO MUCH BETTER THAN WHAT WE GOT, comes back. And now comes the scene that cemented this as the ABSOLUTE WORST insult to me as a fan, possible. Ben is heartbroken that Rey is dead, the moment is sad and he cradles her dead body and hugs her desperately. Which would’ve been a beautiful and GOOD DIFFERENT type of ending. Or rather not having her die at all and being NEAR her death and him saving her and both living happily ever after BUT NO. JJ AFTER THAT has her come back, smile happily when she sees it’s him, her love her hope and the other half of her SOUL literally (the diad or whatever it’s called is so rare that Palpatine was thrilled they’d formed such a bond, basically space soulmates), he has them kiss, then hold each other and smile at each other with genuine feeling of joy and belonging both of them had sought all their life AND THEN YANKS IT FROM UNDER YOU. The scene where Ben falls flat onto his back is quite comical and I couldn’t help but laugh in my misery and sobbing. Rey doesn’t even cry, we don’t even LINGER on his body or mourn him afterwards or even mention it or EVEN SEE her, THE PERSON WHO LITERALLY FOUND HER SOULMATE AND WAS SO HAPPY WHEN SHE KISSED HIM AND WAS LITERALLY SAVED BY HIM, but no guess that doesn’t require a scene, sure, fuck it LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE. The cheery music that plays up until the moment of his fall, YES THE FALL OF SKYWALKER MIND YOU NOT A FUCKING RISE, was an insult to every fan everyhwere, lifelong or recent or otherwise, it was a punch to the gut, a slap in the face and after this happened I no longer paid attention to the movie. I’d been crying for some time leading up to the moment, I knew what was coming and the execution only made it worse and a more desperate cry rather than only sad, I was hoping it wouldn’t happen somehow. I choked back tears until I finally got home and cried. One of the things which MEANT so much to me, was dead. I no longer have any doubts, that this was intentional. Look at Game of thrones, that was this year. It seemed intentional to make series stop, right? Everyone agrees. They wanted to finally bury the Skywalkers so they could make something unrelated? They kill off all the Skywalkers. Well guess what disney? YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO BRING THEM BACK IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU MONEY HUNGRY PIECE OF SHIT. No one would have minded a new trilogy, with new characters doing NEW things. Why even drag the Skywalkers and the leagies into this if YOU DON’T WANT THEM HERE? All you got was millions of lifelong fans of the old movies who have already felt or are only now beginning to feel BETRAYED. I swear it disney, I don’t want to feel this misery again. You won’t take Star Wars away from me and the joy it brought me. I will without a care in the world dismiss this new trilogy as something completely separate from canon. You’ve killed your own fanbase. You could’ve had us but you LOST us. You dangled something we wanted in front of us for our money and then you ripped it apart.

If you are anything like me, anything like me at all and have loved SW for however long. if it MEANS ANYTHING TO YOU, I beg you not to see this movie or at the very least, pay for it. You WILL feel betrayed, insulted, heartbroken, devastated and miserable, as I am feeling right now. I was supposed to go see this movie another two times but i cannot and will not spend another CENT on a company that chooses to alienate me. Fine, have it your way. I’m done.

This concludes my rant as I am tired and upset. If I missed out on anything and you are interested in anything else, please do DM me or leave a comment :) We’re all in this together now, the reylos the antis the new fans and the old. We’re all in the same heartbreaking boat, I love you all. And I will love Star Wars. The REAL Star Wars forever. I wasn’t even sad the ‘FRANCHISE’ was ending because it wasn’t. It had ended a long, long time ago.

[ageofgeek]

Guys...they did the impossible. I liked Rise of Skywalker! They ended it well, and there were a bunch of parts that I REALLY liked (and really only a few parts that I was "meh" about).

SPOILERS UNDER THE READ MORE!

So!  Let’s go through the main reveals/plot points and then I’ll go into more specifics. Rey is Palpatine’s granddaughter - I’ll be honest, I did NOT expect that. I think after TFA came out, I reblogged a gifset that included all of the Rey parentage theories, and I was like, “lol what? who the hell thinks that Rey is a Palpatine? wtf?” And now it’s canon?  Honestly, it’s the same kind of batshit reveal that I’d expect from Star Wars, so I’m kinda okay with it.

Kylo Ren’s redemption was...not as terrible as I thought it would be. As y’all know, I am very anti-Kylo and anti-R*ylo, so I thought I was going to Suffer in this movie. But I was surprised by how I felt about it - only mildly irritated instead of bursting with rage. I still think he doesn’t really have a personality other than 1) whiny 2) manipulative and 3) emo, but I did like the scene where he hallucinates Han and repeats his line from TFA (”I know what I have to do but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it”). That being said, it is still highly questionable to have Kylo’s redemption built on Leia’s death/sacrifice for her son (it reads a little too much like fridging a woman to save a male character), but I will excuse the filmmakers for that because they didn’t have much footage of Carrie Fisher to work with, so there wasn’t too much they could do if they wanted to commit to not digitally reconstructing her (which I am glad they did not do).

I digress (I’ll talk about Leia in the next paragraphs). I did like that Kylo just showed up to the final fight with Palpatine in like, a henley and slacks. It seemed like a very Skywalker thing to do, lol. Also, thank God that he died. Like, damn - I see all these Kylo stans being so upset at his death, and I’m just like?  His character purposefully paralleled Vader - a parallel which I think was weak, at best, but still, a parallel - and you thought that he wasn’t going to die?  Also, what would have happened if he had lived?  Oh right, he would’ve gone to prison for the rest of his life and not gotten married to Rey and have kids, lol, what universe are you living in? As it was, I think that they did his death well - like Vader, they had him sacrifice himself for somebody that he loved (although the bond between Rey and Kylo is, once again, much more questionable to me than the bond between Luke and Vader/Anakin). And like Vader, he turned back to the Light because of his family (Leia and Han). Thinking about the 2 other ways Ben’s character arc could’ve gone (1) he doesn’t turn back to the Light or 2) he turns back to the Light but doesn’t die), this was the only satisfying way to end his arc (at least in my opinion).

That being said, I REALLY could’ve done without that kiss. Like, really? You just had to force it into an unnecessary romance? You couldn’t have just had them hug or cradle each other, platonically? Both of the climactic emotional moments of the previous trilogies were completely non-romantic, and both focused on love of FAMILY - Luke cradling Anakin, his father, as he dies, and Obi-Wan being forced to “kill” Anakin, his brother. It would’ve been so much better if they had ended this one with Rey cradling Ben, her brother, as he died. But no, we can’t have nice things because heteronormativity exists. *sigh*

But, we’re moving on. I thought that they handled Leia’s character really respectfully - I think Carrie Fisher would’ve been proud. I’m still bitter and sad that we only got one scene in the entire sequel trilogy with Luke and Leia (the OG Skywalkers and you only had them in one fucking scene together? Goddammit), but that force ghost scene at the end with the two of them made me happy - it was a bittersweet happiness, but happiness all the same (also, since it is canon that force ghosts get to chill and rest and be happy in the afterlife, I am more than happy with that ending. It also makes me want to write a ton of fanfiction. Stay tuned for that). I also burst into tears when Leia died and Maz stood near her bedside and whispered, “Goodbye, Princess.” Wow, that did things to my heart!

Ian McDiarmid continues to be a goddamn delight to watch as Palpatine, and he was genuinely creepy and horrific in this movie. I still feel like bringing Palpatine back to life (albeit in zombified form) was a real slap in the face to the perfect ending of ROTJ (and it especially cheapens Anakin’s role as the Chosen One, which is really a slap in the face for me), but they did it as best they could. I think I would’ve preferred if Palpatine was in spirit form in this movie, trying to come back to life by using Rey as a conduit or a body? Something like that would’ve honored the end of ROTJ a bit more while also bringing him back as the big villain.

All in all, I liked TROS much more than I hated it, especially since I had pretty low expectations going in. I’ve talked about the big “reveals” and moments so far, but I really liked the little things in this movie! For example:

Rey, Finn, and Poe were a full-on OT3 trio in this movie, and I loved it! The mission to find the wayfinder in the desert? Adventures! Chase scenes! Exploring! Jokes! I loved it - it was definitely giving me “Tatooine in ROTJ” vibes. They all kind of wandered apart in the second half of the movie, but they came back together at the end for that hug!! Which made me cry buckets!! (Poe holding Rey’s hand as they both hug Finn??? Wow, OT3 goals, they are so in love)

Chewie and Lando were great!  Lando felt a little random in this movie (no explanation as to where he was? No mention of Han’s death?), but I always appreciate Billy Dee Williams, so I’m not complaining.

In that same vein, WEDGE CAMEO!!! They got Denis Lawson back, and right after I got back on my Wedge/Luke wagon! Damn, I wish we could’ve seen more of him (maybe there are some deleted scenes??? Listen, I neED MORE WEDGE IN MY LIFE).

And again in the same vein as cameos, um, that Jedi voice scene??? Listen, ok, hearing Hayden’s voice again was more than I ever thought we would get, I was sO EMOTIONAL, I heard him and almost immediately burst into tears. And they got Ewan and Liam Neeson and Samuel L. Jackson(!!!), and the voice actors for Ahsoka and Luminara and WOW I am super emotional, that was hands-down the best scene in the movie for me. I was so happy to hear all of them - the acknowledgement of the prequels and the rest of the Jedi, FINALLY, after 2 previous sequel movies that didn’t give a shit about them. FINALLY we got this. And you know what? I would’ve been even happier if they had shown their faces, but I will take it. I will fucking take it. (That being said: Oh, Disney Gods - please let Hayden return for flashbacks and/or hallucinations in the Obi-Wan series. Please. It’s all I want in life).

The confirmation that Leia trained as a Jedi and had a lightsaber - I almost full-on clapped in the theaters at that scene. And I loved the training sequence/flashback that they had with Luke and Leia - they actually showed them sparring and I loved it so much! It was amazing - why couldn’t they have included that earlier? (Cue me singing: “We could’ve had it allll!!!!!”).

Luke’s Force Ghost appearance really redeemed his character from the beating it got in TLJ. It was a short scene, but it felt so much more like the Luke Skywalker I know and love, and I’m glad that they gave Mark Hamill a chance to really play Luke again.

The end scene with the Resistance coming to help. It felt a little Endgame-ish to me (then again, that was arguably the best scene in Endgame), but we definitely came full circle from TLJ, where the Resistance was basically abandoned on Crait and nobody answered their distress call. In TROS, everybody answered their distress call.

I also like that C3PO had a bit more of a role! I really love R2 and C3PO, and I like that they kept to Lucas’ original vision of the two of them being the only ones to be in all 9 films. I also deeply appreciate R2 being with Leia when she died - that felt incredibly moving and appropriate, and also coming full circle from Leia’s first scene with R2 in ANH.

Finn being confirmed as Force-sensitive! Finally! Fucking 4 years since TFA and we finally got it - hallelujah.

I think that’s about it! Honestly, I’m just so high off of the endorphins of hearing Anakin and Obi-Wan and all of the Jedi again! That scene made the entire movie worth it for me.

But this is the end of the Skywalker Saga, and that makes me really sad. The one thing that I am really upset about with regards to this movie is that it literally ends the Skywalkers. At least if you end the original 6 movies with ROTJ, the implication is that Leia and/or Luke will continue the Skywalker lineage, and they will continue to be leaders and jedi and heroes - but when you add in the sequel trilogy...it just ends. Anakin’s grandson turns to the dark side and ends up (indirectly) killing Luke, Leia, and then himself. And THAT’S how the Skywalkers end? After the tragedy that was Anakin (and Padme’s) life, history just repeats itself and the family line ends? That’s...depressing. But I think that the sequel trilogy, in a way, is still very distant from the other 2 trilogies - in a way, it reminded me of a weird, high-budget delve into the EU that is technically canon, but doesn’t feel like it’s canon???

Either way, I’m happy to accept the sequel trilogy as pseudo-canon, but still apart from the original 6 movies. I’m glad that we got to see some, if not all, of the OT characters again. I wish we could’ve gotten more - out of the old and new characters - but what we got was okay, and I enjoyed the ride.

And now, I’m just going to go cry over the Skywalker family and read force ghost fanfiction :’)