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marybeatriceofmodena · 5 years ago

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TFW when you try to do Anastasia but you also suck at your job: A Master Class by The Rise of Skywalker

Okay. So, I promised you guys a TROS review, and it’s coming, I promise… except I’ll be making two “spin-off posts” about specific issues just in order to clear up some stuff, mainly because in my mind, those issues are important.

First post is going to be, of course, about Rey’s parentage.

So. After TFA, it would have been possible for Rey to have been the kid of “someone”. However, TLJ made it impossible to do so, unless you’d have some serious, bullshit retconning going on – which is exactly what happened.

I know this is a VERY controversial thing to say at this point, but post-TFA, Rey Palpatine “could” have been possible. Okay, maybe not have her be Palpatine’s granddaughter, but more of a descendant of his.

This said, I “tried” making an origin story for Rey Palpatine that “works” for the purposes of this meta, on a hypothetical basis, while making it consistent with canon (something JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio clearly couldn’t be bothered to do, LMAO). I had plotholes no matter what. I do think I could have eventually found something with a little bit of brainstorming, but truth is, IT’S HARD, and a lot of exposition would have been for novels/comics only.

From a thematic perspective, though? It wouldn’t have been a bad idea. For this to work, though, you would have needed to go on full-blown Romeo and Juliet mode with sprinkles of Anastasia, though. I mean, The Lion King 2 did something similar, so why the fuck not. Because, yeah, Ben Solo, the grandson of Darth Vader, son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, the last prince of Alderaan, who falls in love with the last Imperial princess Rey Palpatine while they’re on opposite sides of the war but not the ones you’d think of is the stuff of fairy tales and star-crossed romances, except this one would have a happy ending and brought peace to the galaxy.

Truth be told, I still really enjoy fanfics who go for that story and find a way to make it work in canonverse or in AUs – because it’s genuinely fun. But in canon itself, as I point out earlier… it’s not easy.

So, we have Rian Johnson who said he made a list of potential origins for Rey while he was working on TLJ’s script. You bet Rey Palpatine was on that list. However, he came to the conclusion that Rey Nobody was the best way to go, and whatdyaknow, he made the right call.

Why? Rey Nobody requires minimal exposition. Storytelling-wise, you don’t have a lot of brainstorming to do, and it’s easy to have Ben revealing it, and easy to present it as a repressed memory of Rey’s. On a thematic level, that puts Rey on the same level as Jane Eyre or the main character from Rebecca: she’s a nobody from nowhere who is thrown into a family drama, and since she’s the glitch in the matrix, she must stop the story from becoming a tragedy.

See? Simple. You got your easy exposition, you got your thematic coherence, and you got the literary call-backs.

So, JJ and Terrio decided to retcon this shit because, as they said, they thought it was boring. I think Colin Trevorrow probably thought it was boring too, because I have my reasons to think a lot of TROS is from him (but more on that in my main review). But thing is, it’s not it’s “boring”, it’s literally that they didn’t know what the fuck to do with Rey. No, more than that, they don’t understand her, and frankly, they can’t be bothered to do so. She’s an empty vessel they can toy with at their ease, and in the process, turn her in a Mary-Sue. Because yes, TROS!Rey was a Mary-Sue, whereas TFA/TLJ!Rey was not. So, what I say above regarding Rey might be a bomb for some, considering how people are (understandably) defensive when it comes to that statement. I promise I will elaborate more about it in the main review, once again.

So, with the lineage aspect addressed, it’s time to talk about Rey’s parents themselves.

It’s hilarious how HARD JJ and Terrio tried to make Kylo’s explanation work – because as much as they butchered the shit out of him, they said: “Well he’s a bad liar, right? Gotta keep that in mind.”

Although, I don’t think it was a case of them being concerned with Kylo’s characterization – they’re not that graceful. They had to figure out QUICK why the hell Kylo wouldn’t have known Rey was a Palpatine from the get-go, because the Force is a great DNA test and shit, and I guess that’s how Palps located Ben’s Mighty Skywalker Blood™. Except that still doesn’t work because Palps couldn’t even locate his own goddamn granddaughter, but I digress.

Seriously, why would Kylo lie to Rey about her being a nobody instead of her being a Palpatine? It makes no sense, because if you’re going to roll with the theory Kylo just wants UNLIMITED POWAH, the Palpatine princess is not only a great asset (since marrying her legitimizes your claim to the throne in the eyes of the Imperial Remnants, I mean, that’s literally why Henry VII married Elizabeth of York), it’s also the one argument she needs to hear in order to sway her to your side. So I guess JJ and Terrio’s one shared brain cell kinda flicked a bit at that moment.

This said, getting the Palpatine princess on his side is clearly Kylo’s intention in TROS (which, again, makes no sense with what was set up in TLJ but that’s something I’m keeping for another post), except they trip all over themselves by having Kylo say he didn’t lie to Rey in TLJ. Except…

So, what Ben said in TLJ was the following:

Her parents sold her for drinking money.

They’re dead and buried in a pauper’s grave somewhere on Jakku.

Rey is related to no one.

Here’s what Ben reveals to Rey in TROS:

Her parents sold her for her protection.

They died on another planet, while being hunted down by a guy working for Palpatine and instructed to bring Rey back to them.

Rey’s dad is a Palpatine and Rey’s mom is Villanelle (nah, for real: the actress who plays Rey’s mom is Jodie Comer).

So, um, yeah, it’s the EXACT opposite of what Ben said in TLJ. Just say Palps was fucking with Ben’s mind-reading or Rey’s memories instead, JJ. Not that “Oh Ben was telling the truth, but he didn’t have the whole story”, because that’s not it.

For the latter, once again, it would have been feasible: the one thing, for me, that was possible to be added was that Rey had killed her parents accidentally, by having their ship to leave Jakku crash down with the Force: that’s what made her Force powers go dormant for all those years and provoked her trauma. It would also make sense that Ben would willfully not bring that back to her memories, because she’d understandably not be able to cope with the truth, which is often what happens to a lot of trauma victims. THAT was the theory I had pre-TROS, because that’s the only answer I could come up with when it came to JJ saying that there was more to Rey’s past. I guess I expected JJ to be, like, actually able to write, lmao.

I even wonder if that was actually in the cards, considering we see Rey in TROS bringing down a transport that supposedly has Chewie in it… but I guess they deemed that to be “too dark” for their heroine. Except the bullshit that comes instead is actually… much worse.

To make things simple, I’ll just take the above points and develop them.

Rey’s parents sold her for her protection.

Okay, so, Rey’s parents need to hide her to make sure Palps doesn’t get his hands on her. Fair enough. This said, why did it have to be Jakku and not, like, ANYWHERE ELSE? Especially that Palpatine had interest in Jakku at some point and that maybe having Rey anywhere close to that place would not be a good idea?

But let’s play the game and say that Jakku is the only place they can hide her because… I don’t know, it’s hard to find someone there with the Force. Whatever. Even then, why the fuck would they think Unkar Plutt is a proper guardian for a tiny little girl? You know they could have walked a few miles more and found a nice old man who likes the Light Side of the Force and the Jedi and all that shit called Lor San Tekka? Hey, why not even try to find a guy like Luke Skywalker who’s like, a Jedi and shit, and have him take care of their little girl and protect her?

Even then, why the hell doesn’t Rey’s mom stay with her daughter? Her husband is the Palpatine, not her. All Rey’s mom has to do is find a nicer hiding place for her and Rey somewhere on Jakku, like, not Niima Outpost (again, Tuanul is just a few miles away), and just let Dad hide somewhere else. He’s a grownass man, he can take care of himself and he just has to hide on Nar Shaadaa or some shit. Fuck, why don’t all three of them hide on Nar Shaadaa? Or in the Coruscant undercity? ANYWHERE ELSE?

Also, wouldn’t Plutt clearly see two desperate parents as a business opportunity? Like, if you want to do a Les Misérables comparison here, he wouldn’t “buy” Rey from them, he’d try to get money for them à la Thénardier with Fantine. Except Rey’s parents make Fantine look like frigging Einstein because at least she had the excuse of thinking Madame Thénardier would take good care of Cosette since Éponine and Azelma seemed well-cared for.

Again, a creepy-looking alien who exploits the outpost’s inhabitants for portions in exchange for junk, who asks you to pay him to take care of your kid should be a big fucking red flag – unless you want to involve blackmail, but that’s a whole other can of worms.

Seriously, why the hell would Rey’s parents even ACCEPT money that comes from selling their own child? Were they really that desperate? Fuck, even if I had no other way of getting off Jakku, I wouldn’t even THINK of using money that comes from selling my own child. Any parent who’d even CONSIDER doing that is automatically a godawful parent in my book. Shame on you. And shame on JJ for trying to make me buy them as saints, because THEY’RE NOT, JUST BY THAT SINGLE ACTION.

They died on another planet, while being hunted down by a guy working for Palpatine and instructed to bring Rey back to them.

I didn’t notice it until Jenny Nicholson pointed it out in her TROS review, because it SOMEHOW completely escaped my notice, but… Rey’s mom saying Rey is DEFINITELY NOT on Jakku is like the worst fucking lie I’ve ever seen in a film because it’s so hilariously bad. Congratulations, Space Villanelle, may you be forever remembered for this line.

Also, it’s stupid af that Oshi (that’s his name, right? Can’t be bothered to Google it, might just call him Barney the Bounty Hunter from now on) just kills Rey’s parents, because HE’S EVUL MUAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA, because he literally creates a dead end for himself. He still has no fucking clue where Rey is, and he just killed off his only leads. CONGRATULATIONS BARNEY THE BOUNTY HUNTER, YOU SUCK AT YOUR JOB.

Rey’s dad is a Palpatine and Rey’s mom is Villanelle.

So, Rey’s dad looks like he’s in his early thirties at most, right? Maybe a little younger than Luke and Leia, then. So, unless he got frozen in carbonite at some point, that means Palpatine fucked at some point while looking like this:

Anyway, I sure hope Sly Moore was Grandma Palpatine because she’s pretty much the only person who’d be game to smash raisin ass. Which leaves me with extremely disturbing pictures of Palps and Sly having sex, so I’ll spare you the more graphic details of my twisted mind that’s screaming for an end to this misery.

I sure hope having Rey’s mom as Jodie Comer isn’t a clue that we’ll get spin-offs with those two (GOD PLEASE NO), but while I crack jokes about how Rey’s mom is Villanelle and Palpadad kinda looks like Ramsay Bolton… I find it fucking hilarious they dressed Rey’s mom in BLUE. LIKE, SEE? SEE? SHE’S IN BLUE, LIKE THE VIRGIN MARY, BECAUSE REY IS SPACE JESUS!!!! GET IT??? GETIT???? PLEASE TELL ME YA GET IT, OKAY???? *gross sobbing* I knew we should have had Rey born in a manger, that would have made the artistic intentions clear *wipes tear*

All right. There’s a lot more that could be said about Rey’s lineage, but I’m keeping that for my main review because what’s left to say ties up to the bigger picture. What I tried to point out with this preliminary post is that while Rey Palpatine *could* have worked, in different circumstances, it couldn’t have had post-TLJ… and we’re left to see a mutilated horse who was dead on arrival. And that’s tragic.

#star wars #tros spoilers #the rise of skywalker spoilers #rants and reviews #anti tros #rey #reylo #my meta #reylo meta #rey meta

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hamliet · 5 years ago

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Hello! Have you seen TROS yet? [Spoiler alert] I was really devastated by the ending - coming out the theater feeling upset and disappointed. Do you have any thoughts on it? Or maybe any plan to write fix-it fic? Thank you!

I am seeing it tomorrow. That said, I’ve read the plot summary, and no good execution can save that. So I was planning on posting this after I watched it with amendments made as I hope to enjoy it, but I’ll just post it now and amend this as necessary based on the film as I see it. (I still believe I will enjoy the film, even if I don’t think it’s a good film. I do think that. I really do... I hope.)

BASED ON THE PLOT SUMMARIES ALONE (grains of salt everywhere!):

I think it’s technically… messy writing at best and downright bad writing in other parts.* 10/10 it’s a blockuster-y, JJ Abrams-esque, (hopefully) fun, messy narrative movie that will be forgotten in 0.3 seconds.

Disclaimer before everyone comes after me: if you like it, AWESOME. If you think it’s good writing, great! Good writing and bad writing are inherently subjective; that said, there are general consensuses among literary studies about what constitutes bad and good writing. Hence, I’m relying on those consensuses when I call it messily written.

Before we get into specifics, I’ll compare it to two other major pop culture endings: Game of Thrones and Avengers: Endgame.

TROS is similar to the GoT final season in that it attempts to incorporate every aspect of fan speculation ever. However, it’s more like Endgame in that it is still somewhat true to the themes and characters—but unfortunately also like Endgame, it is not transformative or particularly interesting as a story on its own. In fact, it’s rather boring and honestly… bad storytelling. It tries to rehash Return of the Jedi but it doesn’t succeed in any way because the world and the overall story has grown since the early 1980s, and so the same story doesn’t work anymore.

Showing a cyclical story remaining cyclical with no sign of that breaking–instead, the cycles are even reinforced–does not give optimism nor does it give hope.

Redemption=death needs to die already. If we really want to reach people and tell them that the message is that you can always make a better choice (as Daisy Ridley and JJ Abrams have said about Kylo’s arc), maybe don’t send the message in each and every story that you have to die to redeem yourself. Look outside of cultural secular Calvinism, for the love of God and the betterment of the world and stories as a whole.

Now let’s talk Rey’s parentage.

We know Rey Palpatine wasn’t planned from the beginning (Trevorrow, the original write/director of IX, who was thankfully fired, said that he never planned for Palpatine to return), which means Rey’s parentage was most likely retconned from TLJ and there was no real plan for the sequel trilogy’s overall character arcs (save for Kylo’s, according to the actors and writers).

Listen to me. You don’t have to have everything planned when you start a three-film saga, but you gotta know the major beats.

This is like a sad game of movie telephone.

Yes, I know the OT Star Wars didn’t have a plan either and it’s like one of the only examples I can think of where no plan worked out–albeit not without hiccups (Leia kissing Luke, anyone?) If you expect lightning to strike twice in the same place, I’m sorry, but you are hopelessly naive.

Having Rey decide she wants to carry on the name Skywalker at the end is lame as shit. It’s a way to appease fans while being like nah she still isn’t related. Trying to please every fan is a sure way to guarantee that you will please no one. It might make for a perfectly pleasant film experience (I really hope it does), but not good, lasting storytelling (though not like, horrific either). It’s meh. It’s like… giving someone who is starving oatmeal. It will get the job done but will it satisfy and enthrall people? Not quite.

And let’s switch gears for a minute to Finn and Rose, my first and third favorite characters in this trilogy (Kylo is second, Rey is fourth). The sidelining of Rose is nothing short of a terrible attempt to please the white-supremacist-aligned Fandom Menace. Let’s not pretend it’s anything else. JJ’s lipservice about how wonderful it was that Kelly was cast at SW Celebration is, in hindsight, absolutely nauseating.

Shame on JJ. Shame on Disney.

But the main problem I have with this film is this:

Why did it need to exist?

The answer is money. Obviously. I know, I know stories exist to make money. That doesn’t mean I can’t criticize the fact that the story was sacrificed on the unholy altar of capitalism and Disney’s desire to own our souls. (Disney–the reason I like your movies is that a lot of them are good stories. I’m not interested in pandering soooooo.)

The Rise of Skywalker does not enhance the Star Wars narrative. Nothing about this film satisfies the Skywalker Saga nor the sequel trilogy, and it kind of all comes down to Kylo Ren’s death being the nail that sunk the entire world of Star Wars.

Keep in mind Kylo is not my favorite character when I’m saying this. Finn is. But I never spoke about Finn as much because the story didn’t utilize him properly. I never had concerns about Finn getting a happy ending while I was worried for Rey and Kylo’s arcs. (Finn’s arc, however, did have a ton more potential than was capitalized on; in particular, he would have been better if he was more conflicted over say, shooting other stormtroopers. His whole character humanized the usual red shirts, which when paired with Rose’s everywoman character, had so much potential I could shriek about it all day. That he didn’t lead other brainwashed stormtroopers into rebellion and freedom saddens me. Also, his ending again seems to bring about a good victim/bad victim dichotomy when it is compared with Kylo’s. The reason these two are my faves is that they were brainwashed as kids which, well, I can kinda sorta heavily relate to.)

Kylo Ren and Rey’s relationship doesn’t really get much better than it did in The Last Jedi. It actually rehashes that arc significantly. We already knew Kylo would fight for Rey and the galaxy, so… how was this different? Now, if he had lived, it would have been different, because it was the after the fight that proved that Kylo wasn’t ready to redeem himself in The Last Jedi. It was Kylo’s choice to stay at the expense of Rey and the Resistance that was literally the set up for conflict in the next film. This… turned it into nothing? Their conflict is rehashed and then whoo-hoo! Easy way out! Kill him so that they don’t have to deal with the “after” this time! They never have to deal with the conflict literally set up in The Last Jedi.

That’s bad writing, fam.

Life is infinitely more interesting. Leaving the story open with a living Skywalker instead of killing literally everyone involved with the Skywalkers except Rey who now adopts that name is… so unsatisfying I can’t even. Even if later material shows him showing up as a Force Ghost, like: cool saw that with Vader so this… adds nothing to the existing films. It doesn’t really reconcile anything.

It also… does not help the Rey=Mary Sue argument. She is NOT a Mary Sue, and that is a sexist term itself, but in no way is it a satisfying ending to her arc, because it isn’t a well-written ending which means it isn’t a well-written arc. The problem with Rey’s ending is a mirror of my problem with Kylo’s ending: it’s the very much a combination of her ending in The Last Jedi and her life before The Force Awakens.

She and Kylo are now separated (permanently this time).

She’s has her Resistance friends.

She’s alone on a desert planet.

But wait! Now she’s now happy!

Uh, why? The only reason I can think of is that the narrative demands it. Because honestly, what changes? The family she chose–the Skywalkers–are just as dead as her Palpatine birth family, soooooo. I suppose she reconciled with her heritage and come to peace with it and so that’s why she’s happy now, but… I can’t lie. It’s not hopeful. It’s not optimistic. It’s not Star Wars and it isn’t consistent for the message (especially if this is supposed to be the ending to the saga!) to be both:

life sucks for the Skywalkers and then they die–seriously, look at Shmi, Anakin, Padmé, Leia, Luke, Han, Kylo–it is LITERALLY ALL OF THEM; and

deciding to be a Skywalker means you’re at peace.

I can only assume Rey’s life will suck and then she’ll die, tbh, unless of course she is better off because of her blood… which negates the point of her being a Skywalker and is a really gross idea.

YOU CAN’T HAVE BOTH IN YOUR ENDING. PICK ONE.

Rejecting the Skywalkers would be anti-Star Wars, for sure, but marrying into them as a way of bridging the unfinished pain between Anakin and Padmé and Leia and her father? Much better. Or just leave it open. Honestly, leave it open for Kylo and Rey to both be alive and see each other again.

But you’re just upset your ship didn’t get a happy ending!

No, I’m upset about the storytelling, of which shipping is a part. A canonical part just as much as the lightsaber fights are. Anakin and Padmé. Leia and Han. Finn and Rose. Poe and Zorii. Rey and Ben.

The Force created Anakin, remember? All films–even the spin-offs–encourage our heroes to trust the force. “May the force be with us.” But the Force created an ENTIRE FAMILY THAT LIVED LIVES THAT SUCKED AND MADE LIFE SUCK FOR EVERYONE AROUND THEM AND THEN THEY DIED.

May the Force stay far the f*ck away from me, amen.

But seriously I can’t trust the world of a galaxy far far away or its narrative anymore. It’s a contradiction that causes all nine films to unravel. Why?

Again, let’s return to my earlier GoT comparison, because there is one thing TROS does that is more similar to GoT than to Endgame: Endgame drew together a bunch of unique distinctly separate stories into a crossover. TROS, just like GoT, relied on cliffhanger, incomplete endings to its films and therefore the ending matters a hell of a lot more than a stand-alone story.

I’m not dying to rewatch it like I am with stories where I realize I might learn more the second time. And by “rewatch it” I mean the entire nine-film saga. Knowing that canonically Leia, Luke, Han–they all die and their last descendent dies, the last descendent of Padmé and Anakin–for me, it’s personally gonna be hard to watch again. It’s gonna be hard to watch TROS going into it the first time.

And so the saga of bad endings continues.

Game of Thrones remains the worst at a -100 out of 10. It’s followed by Tokyo Ghoul:re which is still 2/10, and Star Wars is, on paper (meaning after I see it I am hoping it rises a few notches) now… 4/10. Endgame is a solid 6.5/10.

Banana Fish, sweetie, I’m sorry you were ranked down there. Your ending is a 7/10 but the rest of your story is like, 10/10 so you are sprung from this list.

Help me, Shingeki no Kyojin. You’re my only hope.

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brittnicpan · 5 years ago

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Some thoughts I had on the Sequel Trilogy...

I was listening to a livestream @girllswithsabers did a few days ago, and they really had my gears turning. I've really been thinking about this recently, but until I listened to their livestream, I wasn't sure how to put it into words. And then it all finally kicked. Here's why Reylo is so much more important than just a "ship". It's the heart of this trilogy and the entire saga.

First, all abusive relationships exist on a foundation of a power imbalance. One person has all the power in an abusive relationship. That's not Rey and Kylo. It is impossible for them to be in an abusive relationship because they are EQUALLY powerful in the Force, and Kylo respects her for that. There is a mutual respect, despite opposing ideologies.

They BOTH have things they have to work on and maturing to do before they can come together. Yes, Kylo obviously has done horrible things and he has to come to terms with those things and atone for them, so it wouldn't be good if Rey stayed with him at the end of TLJ. But Rey's greatest strength is her compassion for people. The strongest thing you can do is choose to have compassion and forgive someone who has wronged you, especially if they are taking the steps to change. Any relationship they have will need to come after redemption, and it will.

Snoke and Kylo are the definition of an abusive relationship. Snoke was more powerful than Ben and took advantage of how vulnerable and hurt he was from his family. He made him think that he could rely on no one but him, until Rey came along. Kylo saw that there was someone exactly like him out there who wouldn't try to use him for his powers or his legacy because she is just as powerful as he is. Ben couldn't kill Snoke without Rey, and that's when he found the strength and opportunity to do so.

The biggest point of it all is this: this is Star Wars. It's a space fairy tale meant to be a monomyth not beholden to the laws and morals of our world. Yes, they are based off of real-life problems and scenarios, but it is meant to entertain, first and foremost. It is also meant to have us think about how we can treat people in real life and what happens when we come together as humanity.

Second, because Star Wars is a monomyth, it discussses the relationships between men and women, the masculine and the feminine, like other mythologies do. It does this starting with Anakin and Padmé and how their imbalanced relationship leads to an imbalance in the Force and an overwhelming amount of masculine and not enough feminine.

Episodes I-VI we see that imbalance, even after Vader dies. Nothing in the galaxy was solved. The Sequel Trilogy's sole purpose is to bring balance to the Force. How? By bringing together the Masculine and the Feminine, finally, as equals. It's told from a female gaze because it doesn't just embolden women, but it says that men and women can have both the Masculine and the Feminine and the world can be at peace if we just come together.

Women are also representative of life because we birth babies. It's the men of the Skywalker family that have caused the destruction of the galaxy, and they didn't have an equal woman to help bring balance back to the Force. What does Luke teach Rey in TLJ? That between life and death, cold and warmth, decay and growth there is a balance. Women represent life, men represent death. Both are necessary, both are equal, and both feed into each other. You can't have one without the other. Rey is Light, Kylo is Dark. Too much of either throws things out of balance. The Jedi Council of the prequels, the Empire of the originals.

All of this to say that, from this perspective, that's the story Episodes VII-IX are telling, and that's why it makes sense that Rey and Ben will be together at the end, that they have to be together at the end. Their relationship is deeper than just a romance, and it doesn't make sense for it to go any other way. In fact, if they didn't follow through with it, it would be a waste of a story and a cowardice move. But, as Kathleen Kennedy said, the Force is female! Thank goodness she was overseeing the making of this trilogy. She knows that you need both a man AND woman's perspective when telling stories. We had the male perspective with the other two trilogies. Now it's time for the female perspective.

Yes, a lot of mostly male and some female fans hate Reylo and hate these movies. But Star Wars is trying to shift the storytelling perspective and not only bring balance to the Force, but tell the audience that amazing things happen when women and men come together as equals, that there is peace when done so. And yeah, we are used to seeing romances from a male gaze perspective. We've been watching them for years, and it's hard to enact change. But of all the franchises that can do it and should do it, it's Star Wars because it's a modern mythology.

So yeah, some men and women are going to reject it initially, but the more we tell it the more it'll take root in people and change perspectives. I'm not bashing men at all, just trying to explain why Reylo is important. You certainly don't have to like it, but if you can try and understand why so many women and even men have clung to this trilogy, it's because it's speaking to us this time. And because of that, we can all learn important things from it.

Anyway, Rey and Ben are the Balance, and there is no doubt in my mind that they are going to be together at the end of TRoS. They have to be. From this particular storytelling perspective, it doesn't work any other way. And I suspect maybe that's why Kathleen Kennedy fired Colin Trevorrow in the first place. Maybe he just couldn't see and understand the female gaze story. So really, the fact that we have Kennedy really is the most reassuring reason that we're getting a Ben and Rey happy ending.

Anyway, enough rambling. Whatever your thoughts are on the Sequel Trilogy, whether you love it or hate it, I would encourage you to go in with an open mind in December and really pay attention to what the story is trying to say. Try and understand why so many women love this story, and some men, too!

A HUGE thank you to Girls with Sabers for inspiring this post with their livestream, and for encouraging me to post my thoughts! You should check out that livestream AND their YouTube channel. They have done amazing work, and really they are the ones that started making me think of Reylo from a literary and symbolic angle in the first place. Thanks ladies! 😊❤❤❤

Here's the link to that livestream:

youtube

#the rise of skywalker #reylo #reylo is endgame #reylo shippers #episode 9 #star wars tros #star wars #episode ix #ep ix #ep ix speculation

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smokeybrandreviews · 5 years ago

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The Tragedy of Rey Palpatine

I really, really, like Rey Skywalker, in concept. I think she could have been an amazing character and the perfect torch-bearer for the mythos going forward. After The Force Awakens, i was all in with this new trio of characters. Say what you will about Abrams, dude knows how to build a character. He knows how to write a story and Rey’s began wonderfully. She had all of the potential to be held in the same esteem as Mara Jade, Leia Organa, and Ahsoka Tano. Hell, Disney even introduced Chelli Aphra in the Vader comics, another brilliant, female character of Asian descent. Each of these characters were fleshed out, nuanced, and felt real. There is a humanity to them and, i imagine that’s where Abrams wanted to take Rey. Then The Last Jedi happened and ruined almost everything. I think it did a great service for Kylo Ren, overall, but everything else got a big fat Rian Johnson/Kathleen Kennedy sh*t all over it.

Abrams set up a ton of intriguing plots to explore going forward. The hints that Finn may be Force sensitive, the mystery of how Mas got a hold of Anakin’s lightsaber after Vader cut Luke’s hand off in Empire, who the f*ck was Snoke; All threads that could have been elaborated upon to embellish the new characters and give an opportunity to pass the torch on with the new characters. More than anything, the enigma of Rey Skywalker could have driven this trilogy of films in a direction for the ages. The seeds were there for greatness. Why did she hear Obi Wan in that flashback? Why was she spared by the Knights of Ren? Why did Ren know exactly what girl that trooper reported about? The only answer we got was that Rey was the spawn of a Palpatine clone and it was stupid.That reveal was the dumbest sh*t in Rise of Skywalker and there was a lot of dumb sh*t in that movie. Rise spent way too much time apologizing for what Last Jedi did to the mythos and had literally no time to fix the characters going forward. That’s how bad Kathleen Kennedy let Rian Johnson f*ck up.

I like the Last Jedi as a space opera. Hell, i even like it as a Star Wars side story in the vein of Solo or Rogue One. If those events happened in between VII and VIII, cool. But to be a mainline entry? Are you kidding? It just gets so much wrong about the overall lore while simultaneously sabotaging all of the character development and good will fostered by it’s predecessor. The level of f*ckery in The Last Jedi is ind of amazing. At it’s core, The Last Jedi s a fanfic, filled with OC characters, trying to “subvert” expectation to be more than it can or has any right to be. Rian Johnson wanted to make his movie, mythos be damned. Trilogy be damned. Kathleen Kennedy was okay with all of that as long as Johnson pushed her agenda and virtue signaled for all the “Girl Bosses” out there, which he did. The end result was a usual cool, collected, Resistance Ace, Poe Dameron, literally committing treason. We got a regression in the character of Finn, a former Stormtrooper turned rebel scum, a traitor to the First Order who literally got into a lightsaber duel with Vader’s grandson to protect his maybe-love interest, try to runaway like a f*cking coward, only to be tasered into a drooling mess by Rian Johnson’s Jar Jar binx. And the sh*t they did to Luke? That mess is criminal and an entire essay for another time. The Last Jedi f*cked everything up, forcing Abrams to course correct for two and half hours. This sh*t killed any momentum the Disney films had, it killed any semblance of a cohesive narrative going forward, and, worst of all, it murdered any semblance of Rey being more than a poorly written Mary-sue.

These new trilogies had every opportunity to be great. If they had someone with a reverence, a respect, for the source material helming Lucasfilm, they would have been. Look what Filoni has done with The Clone Wars and Rebels. Look what Favreau is doing with Mando. This might be a little glib but, considering Disney is bringing him in for a Star Wars trilogy on their own, look what Feige has done with the MCU? Hell, all things Marvel at this point. When you focus on dope stories and compelling characters, the narrative takes care of itself. When you focus on agenda and pushing divisive material, you can’t help but destroy what you hope to build. Kennedy is letting her ego cut her off at the knees when, if she just reined that sh*t in a bit, she could have been standing tall and walking into the future with her OCs intact. Instead, she has people in her own organization apologizing for her f*ck ups as the value of the legacy property you were gifted, tanks at a hilariously exponential rate. So how do we fix Rey and, effectively fix this entire trilogy?

First off, she needs to be a Skywalker. That is an absolute necessity. I would make her Luke’s kid. That would explain away her proficiency with the Force, the fact she pilots like a champ, and has that hole Force Dyad bullsh*t with Ren, like her dad and aunt kind of have. Rey would be an organic growth of the Skywalker legacy while simultaneously bringing a refreshing conclusion to it with Episode IX. I would build the familial relationship between Kylo and Rey, one representing either side of the Force, both fighting to discover something about themselves within, over the course of this trilogy. I would have made Rey Luke’s kid; A proper Skywalker. I would have made her mother Mara Jade, opening up a whole situation that could have been embellished into at least two spin-off tales with a ton of ramifications going forward. I mean, imagine a story where Luke had to fight off the Knights of Ren AND his nephew before Ben donned the mask, as his pregnant wife ran off into space to avoid the overall destruction of the New Jedi Order. That sh*t writes itself.

You get a side story of Mara Jade and a young Rey on the run, being chased by the Knights over the years, until she leaves Rey on Jakku, ultimately meeting her fate in a last stand battle, like her nephew, at the hands of several Knights on some nameless planet. Or Tatooine, i dunno. That’s an entire film. That’s a brand new, female lead you can explore. It’s organic. It homages the lore. It’s respectful of the overall mythos. It’s literally better than anything Disney has done with the mainline titles so far. Hell, you can even explore how Luke met Mara. Maybe she was one of the reformed Knights. Maybe she was one of the surviving Force Sensitives after Order 66. Maybe she used to be an Inquisitor but turned on Paps once Vader saw the light. Personally, i would skew more toward her being a former Inquisitor, seeking out Luke for revenge but, upon finding him, falls in love after several clashes. That gives Mara depth and allows for her to grow over a novel or two. Maybe a stand alone film. Luke would self-exile after losing to Ren but not because of the L, more because he thinks his wife and unborn kid are long dead. He’s heartbroken and knows he isn’t strong enough to fell his own nephew so Luke runs away. He goes into exile, like Yoda and Obi Wan before him, all the way to Ahch-to, searching for some killer app to finish Snoke before he can really get started. Imagine how much emotional resonance the ending of Episode VII could of held, going this route. Luke staring at Rey with such apprehension and regret. He immediately knows this is his daughter. That she's live. That she's here to ask him to do what he can't.

You'd spend the a good chunk of Episode VIII building that relationship. Showing Luke being cold and stand-offish because he knows Rey is his kid and he regrets his choice to run. He knows that Mara survived for years without him, probably dogged by First Order assassins. That the woman he loved, died alone after abandoning her child to strangers on a backwater planet somewhere in the galaxy. He knows this adult woman standing before him, is his and Mara’s living legacy and he doesn’t want her anywhere near the conflict to come. She’s demanding to be trained. He’s dismissive and curt, until the Dyad with Ren kicks in. Just being on the Force rich planet of Ahch-to increases Rey’s sensitivity, allowing Snoke to tether her to her cousin. When she goes straight to the dark, that’s Ren’s influence. When she cracks the rock and wigs Luke out, that’s Ren’s influence. In order to combat that growing corruption, Luke decides to train Rey to combat the dark. We actually show look acting like a master, teaching Rey sh*t instead of just, you know, “go cut that rock”. We show her learning from Luke, growing in confidence with her abilities. This entire sequence can take the place of literally all of the Canto Bight nonsense. No one liked any of that and it kills the momentum of the entire narrative going forward. Replace it with Rey actually being trained and you not only give her an opportunity for much needed character development, but you give Luke so much more of an arc and a means to have him bow out with substantial grace. If you decide to go the “Luke Dies at the end” route. Personally, i would have nixed Leia in VIII considering things and moved forward with Luke as the survivor but that's another story. I'd have to rework all of VIII and I don't feel like doing that right now. Leia’s death would devastate Ren, flooding him with a boost in the Dark Side, enough to slay Snoke and raise him to Supreme Leader without the need of Rey’s help. This would lead into a version of Colin Trevorrow’s version of Episode IX, which i think is a superior narrative overall but we’ll get there when we get there. Maybe.

The climax of the Last Jedi could be exactly the same but now it has so much more depth. It has so much more resonance for the trilogy going forward. Luke’s sacrifice would mean something as we watched him slowly come to terms with his daughter being the hope going forward, effectively replacing him in the narrative. Most fans would be okay with this as, even though he never tells Rey he’s her father outright, the audience kind of knows. It’s hinted at. The reveal can come in IX somehow or in his last regards to Leia. He apologizes for Kylo but reassures her that, even if he passes, her niece will carry on the fight. Luke tells Leia of Rey's parontagem she says “I know” like her husband, and promises to continue Rey's training to best of her abilities. Kylo gets his shadows chase. Luke’s last words have so much more impact. We have an emotional investment in Rey because the torch had been properly passed. I, personally, would rework the majority of the plot while i’m at it. I’d fix Poe, continue exploring Finn and his connection to the force, and find a way to make Rose Tico relevant without being trite. I mean, you can have the Canto Bight stuff but draw it back considerably. It doesn’t need to be an entire third of the whole f*cking movie.

I like the character of Amilyn Holdo, too, but her arc was stifled by nonsense politics and shallow development. All of that mediocrity kind of made her an easy target to hate, a lot like Rose. In my story, she’d still take the helm from Leia in Last Jedi but would have had an appearance in Force Awakens. She didn’t need to have a ton of facetime, maybe a shout out at the round table toward the end of VII or getting off the ship at Mas’ bar with Leia. Hell, a f*cking holo transmission would be enough of a mention, Holdo just needed a presence in that movie to be legitimized for the next. Rose was fine as is, she just needs more agency and not that bullsh*t, half-assed, love triangle that was literally dropped like a hot track on Soundcloud in the middle of a chase movie. That sh*t was stupid and it doomed Rose before she had a chance to even get started.

Episode IX would start like Rise, Kylo slaughtering his way toward the wayfinder, but revealing that planet was Mustafar instead of whatever planet he was on originally. Ren has been planetside for weeks, searching for the wayfinder dealy and the planets dark side alignment is taking it's toll on him. The mcguffin is deep in the wreckage of Vader's demolished castle, the deep subdivision and what not. Kylo makes his way to it, fighting dark side shades of his grandfather in Anakin form, goading him about his weakness, feeding into Ren's inadequacies about being weaker than his pap-pap. Kylo finds the mcguffin and takes off toward the Outer reaches in an effort to unlock more power. After the climax to VIII, Rey returns to Ahck-to to find Luke gone and the growing pull to the dark within her as the Dyad is wide open and Ren's spiral is pulling Rey along toward the drain, too. She feels him getting closer to full Sith, all of that pain and rage, multiplied considerably by his anger toward his grandfather's shades. Kylo basically flies to the outer reaches to find a Lost sage of the Darkside. It's not a Jedi or a Sith, but a being that thrives in the Dark, like whatever Maul is, but gigantic and monstrous. He learns from that creature, all the while leaving Hux to command the Last Order in his stead, second by General Pryde. The two of these cats have a battle for power, Pryde suspecting Hux of being a traitor, Hux trying to stave of attempts for his seat at the head, all the while pounding the Rebels as they continue to fight. The Knights of Ren are off, clashing with Finn, Poe, Chewie, and Rose as they search for another means to find a way to Rey, as she has the map and R2 with her on Ahck-to where she is training for the final battle. The majority of the film continues to follow the basic plot of IX, mcguffin chasing and what not, with Finn, finally adept enough in the force, to adequately take Rey’s place in those narrative spots.

We have the whole montage of training on both worlds; Force ghost Luke showing Rey more advanced techniques and Ren taking on a full-on, Vader shade, like Luke, in the Outer Regions or whatever. Eventually, the remaining main characters decide to split up as the pressure of the Last Order continues to deplete their resources. Finn fixes Anakin’s lightsaber and begins to train with it under the tutelage of Mas, who is all in with the Rebels now, as they go after the other mcgiffin on Endor. He still meets the other former stormtroopers or whatever and they still help in the final battle but, instead of Rey and Kylo, it Finn and a few Knights of Ren. Maybe two, I dunno. Anyway, he beats them with Anakin's saber, gets the mcgissin and returns to the Rebel base, stormtrooper backup in hand. Poe and Lando try to drum up support for a final strike on the Last Order’s base and you get that whole shtick with Keri Russell's character. I'd take her helmet off, too. Why the f*ck would you hide Keri's face? Shes adorable! Finn and Lando try their best, but it seems like a no-go so Lando stays to work his magic as he and Chewie return to the Rebel planet. Rose can return to the Rebel planet and take charge of strategy or whatever as Leia secludes herself within the base. I dunno. Rose is kind of hard to place because she has no discernible talents but I imagine anything is better than what they did to her originally. Anyway, Rey is able to develop enough self-control to force the Dyad closed, cutting Ren's influence off from her but, at the same time, her influence off from Ren, completely. That's gonna have big ramifications later.

Around the end of the second act, Ren sees a force projection from his mother pleading with him to turn back to the light but he waves her off. Like her brother, Leia uses the last of her strength in this effort and she dies, pushing Ren over the edge, forcing him into full Sith. Since Rey closed the Dyad, Ren has no semblance of Light to keep the Dark at bay and he just absorbs SO much of it. It multiplies his strength in the Force and Ren is able to slay the Dark Sage, take it's power, and return to his fleet. Sh*t, the sage might be an actual Sith, Like, the people Sith and Ren kills him, effectively exterminated the race. Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. Anyway, Ren arrives to find Hux is the traitor so he allows Pryde to kill him. Pryde takes command and they raise their newly constructed, massive, fleet along with a brand new flag ship. Mobile, lightspeed ready, and far more deadly than any planet cannon, Ren is ready to begin his march of devastation. Our heroes arrive on the First Order hideaway and the battle ensues. Finn boards the flagship, clashing with the remaining Knights of Ren, his hit squad of former Stormtroopers at his side, as Rose uses her tech skills to drop the shields or whatever they were doing with horses on that spaceship at he end of IX. Rey arrives on the planet, Ren sensing her returns to the surface, to face off with each other. Ren is brimming with the dark, Rey knows he;s too far gone to save and she resolved to do what is necessary to end his tyranny. She ignites Lukes green lightsber, which upsets Ren and then Leia's yellow saber, which sends Ren into a legit rage. Yeah, Rey dual-wields now because it's cool. Poe does his whole lone ranger whatever as he's the last of the vanguard and sh*t. All is lost.

The reinforcements show up in the nick of time and sh*t happens. Big ass sky battle with spaceships and explosions and sh*t, while Finn, Rose, and that black chick accomplish their task on the flagship. Shields dow, sh*t stats blowing up, fun times. Rey gets wrecked by Kylo, who is all the way Dark, no redemption, yellow rage eyes and everything. She’s getting dumped on until she forces the dyad open, allowing Ren to see the Force ghosts of Jedi Masters of old, as they all appear behind Rey, including Leia, Luke, and Mara Jade. They speak that bullsh*t, lay hands on Rei's lightsabers giving her a jump in power, and Rey defeats Ren in a harrowing duel. It has to end in a lightsaber clash. How can it not? Finn wrecks the remaining Knights and the flagship falls as the Rebel fleet overcomes the last of the Last Order. Ren is defeated, dying slowly, lamenting his choices. In his last moments, as the Force ghosts fade, the last few left are his mother, uncle, and grandpa. The last thing Ben sees as he dies is the face of the man he’s chased for so long. Poetic. Tragic. Requisite celebration on a jungle planet ensues while Rey is off, giving Ben a proper Jedi bonfire. Finn approaches, objecting to the respect shown, but she tells him that, in the end, Ren was still a Skywalker. If Vader can be forgiven, so could Ben. The two watch as the flames rise into the night sky. We get a scene of a shadow tracing the insides of Uncle Owen’s joint on Tatooine, generators firing on, mechanics coming to life. Rey is seen, all by her lonesome, igniting her new, personal, lightsabers; Gold, I guess? Is that what color they were supposed to be? A young kid arrives, inquiring about why the old Lars place is lit up for the first time in decades. He asks her name. She hesitates, looking over her shoulder to see the force ghosts of Anakin, Leia, Luke, Mara, and Ben; Her entire family. She gives a knowing smile and answers, “Rey. Rey Skywalker.”

This is just a rough outline of how i would have written this trilogy. I might embellish a little bit, maybe write it up as a proper fan fiction, but i don’t know. There’s a lot to unpack and i don’t really want to spend the time actually fleshing out this narrative but, i believe this is far superior to anything Disney has done. It fixes Rey, sets up Ren as a actual antagonistic force, kills anything resembling a Reylo romance, returns agency to Finn and Poe, fixes Rose, makes Mas a factor, and wraps everything up nicely. You get answers to the questions from before, the Knights of Ren have a presence throughout the entirety of the trilogy, and even divisive characters like Holdo get a shot at relevance outside of agenda. More than anything Rey being a Skywalker feels earned. It feels organic. It feels right. This is the bookend the Skywalker story deserved, not the rushed, politic laden, ego trip we got.

#Star Wars #The Rise of Skywalker #The Last Jedi #The Force Awakens #Rey Palpatine #Rey Skywalker

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smokeybrand · 5 years ago

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The Tragedy of Rey Palpatine

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him-e · 6 years ago

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Ships and “Endgame” in the ST

I’m curious about are how the narrative treats Rey and Kylo’s interactions in TLJ and how Rey interacts with Finn: I just wanted to hear a counter-argument on why F/innRey wouldn’t be endgame and/or Rey/Kylo would be endgame. They’re not connected necessarily: both can’t be endgame at the same time because I don’t expect Lucasfilm to depict a poly relationship any time soon, but arguing against Reylo being endgame doesn’t mean f/nnrey must be canon or vice versa. Please don’t think I’m writing this in bad faith, I’m genuinely curious about these points and I don’t mean to disrespect anyone who ships Reylo.

Rey and Finn’s interactions in TFA and TLJ are framed very positively. The lines of dialogue between them like “Cute boyfriend?” and “You looked at me like no one ever had,” definitely point to romantic interest to me: I don’t see why the creators would include lines like that without indicating some romantic interest was there. Finn is the first person to ever “come back” for Rey, and their experiences with each other are “firsts” that are incredibly important. They care deeply about each other.

In TLJ, they are separated for the majority of it, but you could say that separation is always part of the romantic arc, and Rey is constantly thinking about him, while Finn is constantly thinking about her. Before she heads off to save Kylo, she gives Chewie an important message to Finn. (Which could have been something like “I love you” but I don’t want to assume.) When they see each other and embrace at the end of the movie, it’s the first time Rey looks *happy* in TLJ. She looks so happy when they hug, and there’s a long hold both on their embrace and at Rey’s heartbroken expression as Finn tucks in Rose.

In contrast, the Rey and Kylo scenes could be interpreted as Rey learning her lesson about how important Kylo is to saving the galaxy: not a “Don’t Trust Your Sexuality” lesson, which I do find a misogynistic angle to take on this particular issue, but a lesson about thinking she needs Ben Solo to save the galaxy, a lesson that she doesn’t need him. Additionally, although most of their Force bonds are weighed with attraction, she never seems to be very happy with him, and at the end, he says deeply cruel things to her (The Throne Room scene) and attempts to have her killed on Crait.

The last Force bond tells me Rey is not budging, and, per the novelization, has no compassion for him: it would be a long, long road to have her forgive him at all, let alone build some sort of romantic dynamic even though they will probably be enemies for a significant portion of IX. (Noting here that yes, they were enemies in TLJ too, but IX can’t spend a large portion of its running time devoted to intimate conversations like TLJ did: it’s the final act of this Trilogy and the Skywalker Saga, things need to start wrapping up.)

I do think that Kylo Ren’s redemption is somewhat necessary to keep the story of the Skywalker family from seeming like a complete tragedy: it would be a pessimistic ending, in my view, if the takeaway from the ST was “Sometimes, your loved one can’t be saved, and so other people must rise to the occasion,” for the Skywalker family. But, even if I think redemption is incoming, I’m still not convinced that Kylo could be with Rey. There’s audience reaction to consider (cue the cries of people asking just how this villain is worthy of the hero), but also the narrative beforehand: although Rey seemed willing to forgive Kylo completely for a part of TLJ, the audience still remembers scenes like the interrogation (a violation of Rey and something that robs her of agency, even though she does defeat Kylo), the Snow Fight, the Throne Room, and Crait. They did tone down some of his actions in the interrogation, like touching her, supposedly, but I still feel like Kylo is an unambiguous villain in those scenes, his treatment of Rey is awful (and this is just about his behavior, not whether Rey fights him off) and then, after showing us some of his humanity in TLJ, he snaps back to being a villain, and hurting Rey, intentional or not.

In TFA, Kylo is very much an aggressor/pursuer of Rey and her triumph is in fighting him off; in TLJ, he seems like more of a tempter figure, and Rey’s triumph is not giving into his offer and finding value in herself. She doesn’t ever seem happy with him, and the narrative never shows us a scene of complete fulfillment when she’s with Kylo: he never gives her anything she didn’t have, where Finn does in TFA by going back for her. (The scene where they touch hands, especially considering the music and the fact that Luke Skywalker is the one walking in on them, could also be read as an ominous one where Rey is getting too close to the dark.)

I don’t deny that Reylo was extremely “shippy” in TLJ. But Rian Johnson, in the same interview when he said that Kylo’s perspective in the throne room was a “naked, emotional appeal” also said: “It was important to me that it wasn’t a chess game, it wasn’t just a manipulation. It’s unhealthy, and there’s much that is awful about the way that he is manipulative. From his point of view, it’s a very naked, open, emotional appeal.” So he does acknowledge that Kylo is being unhealthy and manipulative, and that’s the writer’s intent. Rey’s arc in TLJ is very much fit to a naive hero’s arc, where she trusts the wrong person and sees the error of her ways. It doesn’t mean that Kylo is irredeemable and can never be trusted again, but TLJ also doesn’t mean that Kylo and Rey should be together, and includes quite a few scenes that could be read as red flags on his end, signals to the audience that this is a bad man who doesn’t have Rey’s best interests at heart.

And then there’s the next film, which is more opinion/conjecture on my part, but I don’t think JJ Abrams is the kind of storyteller who’s interested in depicting a big epic romance as the finale of the Skywalker Trilogy, or interested in involving Rey in the Skywalker Redemption question. Han and Leia care about Ben in TFA, Rey only views him as an enemy; and when she does try redeeming him in TLJ, the answer to her attempt is a solid “No.” JJ is a Better Trevorrow to me, in some ways, where he’s good at spectacle and big, bombastic movies, and although he isn’t openly misogynistic, his movies do have some sexist pitfalls. The “Reylo” arc is on a knife’s edge as it is, and already perceived as abusive and glorifying of a villain who hurts the heroine by many people: how would he be able to execute it in such a way that the audience wouldn’t be outraged at the injustice of Kylo Ren not only getting redeemed, but “getting the girl” so to speak? (I totally think the idea of Rey as a prize is repulsive, but unfortunately the majority of people do still perceive heroines or love interests who are female this way.)

Rey not needing Kylo, and being able to ascend to heroism without him, was the end point of TLJ, and I think it would undermine that ending if in IX she did turn out to need him after all and they had to work together or she had to forgive him. The movies so far have explicitly showed that while they’re attracted to each other, he’s a toxic person who isn’t good for her. And if it is going to be romantic going forward, why would it have an “endgame” type ending? And then there’s the option of Rey being alone romantically, but still surrounded by friends, allies, and people who care about her.

And on a separate note, I just feel like there are far too many “romance” cues for F/innRey for that to not have been planned from the beginning. In TFA, those “boyfriend” lines weren’t essential, they could have been taken out without affecting the friendly-rapport feeling in their relationship. In TLJ, they didn’t have to juxtapose Rey being in tears facing Kylo to happily embracing Finn upon being reunited with him. And while there is the factor of Rose kissing Finn, they never entered into a deliberate romantic relationship or showed that the feelings were mutual: I feel like FinnRose isn’t essential to the next movie if they dismissed it, since so much of Finn and Rose’s arc could be read as them being friends or compatriots. There’s really no cues of romance until she kisses him.

I’m sorry this is much longer than I anticipated, but these are the things that have been nagging me for the past few months. I did really enjoy TLJ, and I do like Reylo and apologize if my comments came off like I was trashing the ship for no reason, but this is my honest reading of the text. I have a lot of respect for your meta and wanted to bring up these points: if you don’t want to respond to this, I’m sorry for depicting a negative opinion and wasting your time.

Don’t worry, I don’t think you wrote this in bad faith! That’s one hell of an essay, and I want to thank you for taking the time to write it and submit it to my blog. The two main arguments you’re making are a) that reylo is real but is depicted negatively and so it’s unlikely to be endgame, and b) that f/nnrey can still happen and be endgame because the romantic hints dropped in TFA must go somewhere and it makes Rey happy (forgive me for the simplification). I’ll try to address some key points.

The movies so far have explicitly showed that while they’re attracted to each other, he’s a toxic person who isn’t good for her

I don’t think that’s what the movies showed. He’s not a toxic person to Rey (Daisy Ridley has gone on record saying Kylo “nurtured” Rey in a way that even Luke couldn’t do)—he’s someone whose political affiliation and morals and ideologies can’t be reconciled with Rey’s, and THAT’S why Rey dumps him. Because he doesn’t stop firing on the Resistance fleet and instead asks her to essentially become a villainess at his side, because he’s still hellbent on being the leader of a despotic military organization, that’s why the narrative separated them at the end of TLJ, not because he’s “toxic” or “abusive”.

even if I think redemption is incoming, I’m still not convinced that Kylo could be with Rey. There’s audience reaction to consider (cue the cries of people asking just how this villain is worthy of the hero), but also the narrative beforehand: although Rey seemed willing to forgive Kylo completely for a part of TLJ, the audience still remembers scenes like the interrogation (a violation of Rey and something that robs her of agency, even though she does defeat Kylo), the Snow Fight, the Throne Room, and Crait. They did tone down some of his actions in the interrogation, like touching her, supposedly, but I still feel like Kylo is an unambiguous villain in those scenes, his treatment of Rey is awful (and this is just about his behavior, not whether Rey fights him off) and then, after showing us some of his humanity in TLJ, he snaps back to being a villain, and hurting Rey, intentional or not.

So it actually all boils down to the audience’s reaction, doesn’t it? He’s too much of a villain so let’s not make reylo happen or the audience won’t accept it. But what the narrative is depicting—intentionally—is a hero/villain romance. The villain being a villain and yes, doing villain things including trying to hurt the hero (and viceversa, the hero doing hero things and trying to stop, violently, the villain) is exactly what defines this sort of pairings. Part of the audience will love it, part won’t, but a narrative that is afraid of pissing off a part of the audience isn’t a strong narrative.

I’m also not sure what would be the point of redeeming Kylo but still having him portrayed as a toxic individual whom the heroine should stay the fuck away from. Does this sound like an epic closure to a trilogy of trilogies whose thematic pillars have always been hope and redemption? To me it just sounds like a moralistic tale trying to half assedly appeal to tumblr discourse.

The “Reylo” arc is on a knife’s edge as it is, and already perceived as abusive and glorifying of a villain who hurts the heroine by many people: how would he be able to execute it in such a way that the audience wouldn’t be outraged at the injustice of Kylo Ren not only getting redeemed, but “getting the girl” so to speak? (I totally think the idea of Rey as a prize is repulsive, but unfortunately the majority of people do still perceive heroines or love interests who are female this way.)

You’re talking as if the audience is a hivemind and universally agrees with the intra-fandom, white-feminist, tumblr-specific “Reylo is abusive” wank. But the majority of the audience is actually moderately fine with Reylo, and most of them will be overwhelmingly okay with it if IX has something that tops the praetorian guard fight in terms of iconic jedi/sith marriage alliance. A good 80% of the general target audience for SW is people who don’t engage with fandom the way we do, they couldn’t care less about reylo or f/nnrey or any other ships for that matter, they just want to see a good story and be entertained for three hours and pew pew space battles. The people who will be “outraged” if Kylo “gets the girl” are only a tiny niche if you consider the star wars audience as a whole.

Also, it isn’t Kylo getting the girl. It’s Rey getting the boy. TLJ made sure to put her perspective front and center—it’s she who pursues Kylo, she who catches him in a state of undress, she who gets the eye candy, she who ruminates on his backstory while also delving deep into her own. It’s her point of view, her feelings, her attraction, her choices, while Kylo remains relatively passive for most of the time, waiting for her (to show up in a force connection, to come to the Supremacy, to take his hand).

The scene where they touch hands, especially considering the music and the fact that Luke Skywalker is the one walking in on them, could also be read as an ominous one where Rey is getting too close to the dark

oh, no. No, no, no. :)) The Force theme plays during the hand touch. (the /ominous/ music you hear before is actually some notes from Kylo’s theme, iirc). And the point of Luke’s arc in TLJ was that he was wrong about Ben, wrong about trying to murder him, and especially wrong about going into exile for years, and after this scene he finally decides to face his demons. He’s not the wise mentor whose perspective can be trusted. His perspective is as flawed as everyone else’s. And he is actually the one who is depicted in an ominous way in that scene (barging in, hand raised to destroy the hut in a gesture that reminds intentionally of what Ben did the night he destroyed the jedi academy).

And at no point Rey got too close to the dark. She only got close to Kylo. She was never tempted by power, or knowledge, or violence, or any of the traditional pitfalls of the dark side. Her only instinct was to help, and save someone from himself. If compassion and love are a path to the dark side, then we should rewrite the Sith code, lol. No, Luke was wrong, he learned his lesson, and by the end of the movie he went to face Kylo Ren fully knowing that he wouldn’t be the one who’d turn the monster back into a man this time, but that someone else could.

It’s not about “needing”, or “having to”. It’s about wanting. Rey not needing Kylo (and likewise Kylo not needing Rey) is something I’m thankful TLJ established, because it actually lays the basis for the healthiest kind of relationship, the one where you love someone without depending (materially or emotionally) on them. This puts all the emphasis on personal choice, rather than necessity, and I think fits extremely well with the main themes of this trilogy. Rey realizing that she doesn’t need Kylo was beautiful and I’m sure the narrative won’t backtrack on it, but I still think she’s going to be with him in the end, not because she “has to”, or “can’t live without him”, but because she wants to.

And I think this doesn’t undermine Rey’s agency at all, on the contrary, it elevates it.

Re: the proposal speech being manipulative but also genuine according to Rian, please refer to this and this.

Re: Rey being “unhappy” with him, uhm. I see this argument tossed around all the time and it annoys me big time. Right, she was SO unhappy that she ditched Luke to run to Kylo and try to save him as soon as she got a Force flashforward of his being at her side. What an ugly vision she must have seen, right? Careful not to confuse “raw emotions for an enemy whose pain resonates deeply with mine, as I’m also fighting a war” with “unhappiness”. Rey wasn’t unhappy in TLJ anymore than she was in TFA—she just stopped pretending to be fine, as she met someone who made her dig under the surface of her plucky heroine facade and confront her own demons and feelings of abandonment, and who brought his own demons and feelings of abandonment to the table, which Rey felt intensely for.

Happiness, conversely, isn’t always a sign and guarantee of romantic love, and the idea that love always makes you feel happy is generalizing and shallow, especially when it’s more about looking happy than anything. “She looks so happy when they hug”. Uh. So? I have a best friend who is truly the only person in the world who can put a smile on my face when I’m feeling down and who I can be completely myself with, and I would even say she’s the MOST important person in my world aside from my own family, and YET, I’m not in love with her. Nor should I try to be in order to stop suffering or be generically “happy”. Friendship is friendship, and love is love: both are equally important but they’re not the same, and they fulfill different needs. (mind, this is not me dissing friends-to-lovers tropes, which I like a lot, or saying that friendship can never evolve into romantic love, just that the kind of comfort and happiness true friendship offers isn’t necessarily the best basis for a romance, especially when there aren’t any obvious signs of romantic/sexual attraction.)

Speaking of which, and moving to the pro-f/rey part of your submission… I think most of the confusion re: f/nnrey being “obviously” romantic in TFA comes from the assumption that an “endgame” relationship needs to be portrayed as unambiguously positive since the start. Yes, Finn and Rey’s interactions in TFA were overwhelmingly positive—almost too positive, which in mainstream fiction doesn’t bode well for romance. Central romances, especially of the “epic” kind, are generally bumpy (or downright antagonistic) at first. And by “at first” I don’t mean the first five minutes of interactions, as in f/nnrey’s case: I mean at least the first act of the story. Translated into the context of a movie trilogy—it amounts to the first movie, give or take.

I just feel like there are far too many “romance” cues for F/innRey for that to not have been planned from the beginning. In TFA, those “boyfriend” lines weren’t essential, they could have been taken out without affecting the friendly-rapport feeling in their relationship. In TLJ, they didn’t have to juxtapose Rey being in tears facing Kylo to happily embracing Finn upon being reunited with him. And while there is the factor of Rose kissing Finn, they never entered into a deliberate romantic relationship or showed that the feelings were mutual: I feel like FinnRose isn’t essential to the next movie if they dismissed it, since so much of Finn and Rose’s arc could be read as them being friends or compatriots. There’s really no cues of romance until she kisses him.

funny how you’re saying that f/nnrey had “too many” romance cues not to have been planned from the get go in the same breath as you also argue that finnrose isn’t irrevocably romantic and could be easily dismissed in IX. Finn and Rose have a complete romantic arc in TLJ. Complete with a kiss. Whereas Finn and Rey only have a “boyfriend” line (which could be very well foreshadowing of Rey getting a “boyfriend” in TLJ, which she did, lol) and everything else is about deeply caring for each other and being each other’s first real friend (she looked at him like no one ever had, he came back for her when nobody would). Friendship tropes, I’ll concede, can sometimes be confused with romantic tropes, but why do the tropes used in TFA f/nnrey speak of romance more clearly than what Finn and Rose had in TLJ?

My opinion: they don’t. And if it seems to you like they do, it’s probably because you want them to see that way. Which is okay, as long as you’re aware of your bias. What really tips the scale from “could be romantic” to “oh no it’s definitely romantic” is the usage of textual, unequivocal romantic tropes and situations like Rose kissing Finn on the lips against a beautiful beaming ray of light or, well, Rey accidentally walking on a half naked Kylo and being very confused.

Those are facts, not hints.

And this isn’t Game of Thrones with its three hundred parallel storylines and red herrings or a 14 seasons-long CW teen drama, it’s a three-movie space opera that needs to be as closely knit and narratively solid as possible, it can’t afford doing a back and forth between romantic storylines, which at this point (following your logic) would be THREE, and two of them should be dismissed or ended badly in the last movie for the third to be endgame.

The main couples of this trilogy as established by TLJ are Finnrose and Reylo. F/nnrey having any sort of romantic development at this point would only confuse the audience and unnecessarily complicate the narrative, which is already complex enough as it is.

In TLJ, [Finn and Rey] are separated for the majority of it, but you could say that separation is always part of the romantic arc

Not for the entire second act of a trilogy, the one where (statistically in the SW movies) the pairing makes the leap from platonic (or antagonistic) to romantic.

and Rey is constantly thinking about him, while Finn is constantly thinking about her.

…were they? I mean, they probably were and it’s fine to headcanon it that way, but we weren’t actually shown any of it on screen (it was just handwaved at, with Rey trying to make contact with Finn, and Finn trying to leave to find Rey in the beginning) and this is important, storywise. It means that their dynamic is already established; the narrative trusts the audience to remember that they’re friends, they care about each other, they have an unbreakable sibling-like bond à la Luke and Leia, and there’s no need to remind us that they care about each other or introduce new developments in their relationship, which was fully formed by the end of TFA already.

Before she heads off to save Kylo, she gives Chewie an important message to Finn. (Which could have been something like “I love you” but I don’t want to assume.)

Again, it’s fine if you want to headcanon it that way, but one half of the pairing having the revelation that she loves the other offscreen (and no payoff for that at the end of the movie) is a really bizarre way to establish an endgame romantic pairing, if you ask me.

Re: the residual “romantic” cues in finn/rey—I think, if there were any (which in itself is debatable, but still), it’s probably because the finnreylo dynamic was originally conceived (by JJ) as some sort of lowkey love triangle, and then scrapped (still by JJ) in favor of a completely platonic bond on the f/nnrey side. Thankfully, Rian threw any possibility of a wacky love triangle out of the window by introducing Rose and letting Finn have his OWN romantic storyline rather than being reduced to a third wheel or cannon fodder to some stupid romantic conflict for reylo (which has no shortage of conflict on its own anyway, lol).

You also make it sound it deceptively easy to dismiss Finnrose as some sort of failed experiment or brief but ultimately irrelevant digression in the path that leads to the f/rey romance. It’s not. Rose is an important character, whose feelings matter, and she’s EXPLICITLY, textually in love with Finn. There’s no way to work around this fact or pretend it didn’t happen or argue that they’ll magically turn into platonic coworkers or *compatriots* (?). Finn’s feelings might be less clear but that’s why we still have a whole movie to go. But they already kissed, which as I said is far more definitive storywise than a line about a cute boyfriend or a kiss on the forehead.

Finally,

it would be a long, long road to have [Rey] forgive [Kylo] at all, let alone build some sort of romantic dynamic even though they will probably be enemies for a significant portion of IX.

It wouldn’t be a long, long road to have her forgive him, it would be a very short and simple road, because TLJ already did the bulk of the work in this sense, and made Rey deeply care for Kylo and, even more importantly, understand where his rage and hurt come from. The romantic dynamic is already established, it only needs to come to fruition, which is incredibly easy to make it happen since (to your admission too) they’re doing Bendeption anyway. To be frank, Kylo only needs to choose to ditch the First Order and maybe make ONE selfless act to redeem himself, even in Rey’s eyes, especially in Rey’s eyes. Nothing he did on Crait was worse than what he did on Starkiller (his body count is even shorter!), and it took Rey approximately 5 days to believe in his inherent goodness. I don’t think she’s changed her mind on that. I think she knows he isn’t in the right place to change his views yet, and is fully ready to fight him if need come, but she also doesn’t hate him, as the novelization also confirms (whereas, post tfa, she thought she did).

yes, they were enemies in TLJ too, but IX can’t spend a large portion of its running time devoted to intimate conversations like TLJ did: it’s the final act of this Trilogy and the Skywalker Saga, things need to start wrapping up.

Actually, it can. TLJ did it and managed to have TWO other full fledged storylines (including another romantic arc) running parallel to the reylo one, an identity/redemption arc for Luke AND an epic climatic battle in the end. 2 hours and 45 minutes are a LONG time to develop a dynamic to its fulfillment. And what other loose ends or main conflicts does this trilogy have to resolve yet, other than Ben’s relationship with Rey (and reconciliation with Leia, hopefully)? The only reason you think IX can’t spend time on reylo is because you don’t see it as a crucial part of this trilogy. But it is.

TL;DR; in my opinion f/rey doesn’t have enough set up to be the endgame romance (not even considering TFA alone), and with Rose’s introduction they kind of sealed the deal. Having Finn and Rey be involved in romantic threads with two other main characters only to undo those threads and put them together in the end actually requires more work (narrative-wise) than letting their respective romantic storylines evolve to their natural conclusion in IX. Pre-TLJ I said that both f/rey and reylo can be “canon”, and both are, the former as a friendship (the most important one in this trilogy) and the latter as a romance. I just don’t think they’ll be both romantic in the end. There’s potential in that to explore in fanfiction (just like there was potential in, say, Luke/Leia or Obi Wan/Padmé or even O/bikin), but it’s an extremely unlikely (and messy) direction to go for the canon story.

Hope this clarifies my opinion on the issues you raised, and that I didn’t sound too dismissive of your points. If so I apologize in advance.

#submission #sw wank #sw asks #sw for ts #discourse #fandom discourse #finnrey for ts #reylo for ts #finnrose for ts #tlj for ts #tlj wank #anti reylo bs #ship wank #sw ships #reylo**#sw**

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uomo-accattivante · 7 years ago

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A long time ago, a grade-schooler got his hands on a spaceship. He followed the assembly instructions as best he could, snapping on the cannons, the landing gear, the tiny interstellar-chess table. Soon enough, Rian Johnson was holding his very own Millennium Falcon. “The first thing I did,” he recalls, “was throw it across the room, to see how it would look flying.” He grins. “And it broke.”

Johnson grew up, went to film school, made some good stuff, including the entertainingly twisted 2012 sci-fi drama Looper. He’s nearly 44 now, though his cherub cheeks and gentle manner make it easy to picture the kid he was (too easy, maybe – he’s trying to grow back a goatee he shaved); even his neatly pressed short-sleeve button-down has a picture-day feel. In late October, he’s sitting in an office suite inside Disney’s Burbank studios that he’s called home for many months, where a whiteboard declares, “We’re working on Star Wars: The Last Jedi (in case you forgot).” Johnson is the film’s writer-director, which means he ended up with the world’s finest collection of replacement toys, including a life-size Falcon set that nearly brought him to tears when he stepped onto it. He treated it all with what sounds like an intriguing mix of reverence and mischief – cast members keep saying nothing was quite what they expected. “I shook up the box a little bit,” he says, with that same grin.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, everything is broken. In the months since the franchise stirred back to life in 2015’s The Force Awakens, it has felt rather like some incautious child grabbed civilization itself and threw it across the room – and, midflight, many of us realized we were the evil Empire all along, complete with a new ruler that even latter-day George Lucas at his most CGI-addled would reject as too grotesque and implausible a character.

Weirdly, the saga saw it all coming – or maybe it’s not so weird when you consider the Vietnam War commentary embedded in Lucas’ original trilogy, or the warnings about democracy’s fragility in his prequels. In the J.J. Abrams-directed The Force Awakens, a revanchist movement calling itself the First Order assembles in Triumph of the Will-style marches, showing the shocking strength of an ideology that was supposed to have been thoroughly defeated long ago. What’s left of the government is collapsing and feckless, so the only hope in sight is a band of good guys known as the Resistance. Familiar, this all sounds.

“It’s somewhat a reflection of society,” acknowledges the saga’s new star, Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey, and who has gone from unknown London actress to full-blown movie star nearly as fast as her character went from desert scavenger to budding Jedi. “But also it is escapism, because there are creatures and there are people running around with fucking lasers and shit. So, I think, a wonderful mix of both.”

And the worse the world gets, the more we need that far-off galaxy, says Gwendoline Christie, who plays stormtrooper honcho Captain Phasma (as well as Game of Thrones’ Brienne of Tarth): “During testing times, there’s nothing wrong with being transported by art. I think we all need it. Many of us are united in our love for this one thing.”

The Last Jedi, due December 15th, is the second episode of the current trilogy, and advance word has suggested that, as in the original middle film, The Empire Strikes Back, things get darker this time. But Johnson pushes back on that, though he does admit some influence from the morally ambiguous 2000s reboot of Battlestar Galactica (which is funny, because Lucas considered the Seventies TV show a rip-off and urged a lawsuit – long since settled – against it). “That’s one thing I hope people will be surprised about with the movie,” Johnson says. “I think it’s very funny. The trailers have been kind of dark – the movie has that, but I also made a real conscious effort for it to be a riot. I want it to have all the things tonally that I associate with Star Wars, which is not just the Wagner of it. It’s also the Flash Gordon.”

As of late October, almost no one has seen it yet, but Johnson seems eerily free of apprehension about its prospects. He exuded a similar calm on set, according to Adam Driver, who plays Han and Leia’s Darth Vader-worshipping prodigal son, Kylo Ren. “If I had that job, I would be stressed out,” he says. “To pick up where someone left off and carry it forward, but also introduce a vocabulary that hasn’t been seen in a Star Wars movie before, is a tall order and really hard to get right. He’s incredibly smart and doesn’t feel the need to let everyone know it.” (“It felt like we were playing the whole time,” says Kelly Marie Tran, cast as the biggest new character, Rose Tico.) A few weeks after we talk, Lucasfilm announces that Johnson signed on to make three more Star Wars films in the coming decade, the first that step outside of the prevailing Skywalker saga, indicating that Disney and Lucasfilm matriarch Kathleen Kennedy are more than delighted with Last Jedi. And Kennedy’s not easily delighted, having recently replaced the directors of a Han Solo spinoff midshoot and removed original Episode 9 director Colin Trevorrow in favor of Abrams’ return.

The Force Awakens’ biggest triumph was the introduction of new characters worth caring about, led by Rey and Kylo Ren, plus the likes of John Boyega’s stormtrooper-defector Finn, Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron and more. Kylo Ren (born Ben Solo) lightsaber-shanked Harrison Ford’s Han, depriving Johnson of one coveted action figure – but the film left us with Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia, now the general who leads the Resistance, and the climactic reveal of Mark Hamill’s now-grizzled Luke Skywalker.

The Last Jedi will be Fisher’s last Star Wars movie. In the waning days of the cruel year of 2016, she went into cardiac arrest on an airplane, dying four days later. Less than a month afterward, 500,000 or so people assembled in Washington, D.C., for that city’s Women’s March, and Leia was everywhere, in posters bearing her doughnut-haired image circa 1977, with accompanying slogans (“A Woman’s Place Is in the Resistance” was, perhaps, the best).

Johnson had grown close with Fisher, and is glad to hear that I visited her psychedelically decorated Beverly Hills house a couple of years back, where she did almost an entire hilarious interview prone in bed. Afterward, she cheerily cracked jokes about drugs and mental illness in front of a visiting Disney publicist. “You got to experience a little bit of that magical sphere that she created,” says Johnson, who went over the script with her in that same bedroom. “I’m happy I got to poke my head into that, briefly, and know her even a little bit.”

He left her part in the film untouched. “We didn’t end up changing a thing,” says Johnson. “Luckily, we had a totally complete performance from her.” So it is now Abrams who has to figure out how to grapple with Fisher and Leia’s sudden absence. (He is characteristically gnomic on the matter: “It’s a sad reality,” he says. “In terms of going forward … time will tell what ends up getting done.”)

Overall, Johnson enjoyed what seems like an almost unfathomable level of autonomy in shaping The Last Jedi’s story. He says no one dictated a single plot point, that he simply decided what happens next. And he’s baffled by fans who are concerned by the idea that they’re “making it up as we go along”: “The truth is, stories are made up! Whether somebody made this whole thing up 10 years ago and put it on a whiteboard and we all have to stick to that, or whether we’re organically finding it as we move forward, it doesn’t mean that any less thought is being put into it.”

Mark Hamill’s single scene in The Force Awakens lasts all of one minute, and he doesn’t say a thing. But it’s an indelible piece of screen acting with real gravitas, from an underrated performer who had become better known for Broadway and voice-over work – he’s been the definitive animated Joker since the early Nineties. (“With voice-over,” Hamill says, “I thought, ‘This is great! I can let myself go to hell physically! I don’t have to memorize lines!’”) As Rey approaches him on the lonely mountaintop where’s he’s presumably spent years studying the Jedi equivalent of the Talmud, Luke Skywalker’s bearded face cycles through grief, terror and longing.

“I didn’t look at that as ‘Oh, this is going to be my big chance,’” says Hamill, who has just shown up at Johnson’s offices and plopped down next to him, carrying a large thermos of coffee in the right hand that Darth Vader once chopped off. He has a trimmed-down version of his elder-Jedi beard, which he’s grown to appreciate: “I shaved, and I thought, ‘You know what, the beard does cover up the jowl.’”

Hamill is a charming, jittery chatterbox – turns out that even at his youngest and prettiest, he was a geek trapped in the body of a golden boy. He is excitable and wild-eyed enough to give the vague sense that, like Luke, he actually might have spent a few solitary years on a distant planet, and is still readjusting to Earth life, or at least movie stardom.

He admits to having had “frustrations over being over-associated” with Star Wars over the years – his Skywalking cost him a chance at even auditioning to reprise his stage role as Mozart in the film of Amadeus – “but nothing that caused me any deep anguish.” He still spent the decades since Return of the Jedi acting and raising a family with Marilou, his wife of 39 years. And as for his current return to the role of Luke? “It’s a culmination of my career,” he says. “If I focused on how enormous it really is, I don’t think I could function. I told Rian that. I said, as absurd as it sounds, ‘I’m going to have to pretend this is an art-house film that no one is going to see.’ ”

For his Force Awakens scene, he says, “I didn’t know – and I don’t think J.J. really knew – specifically what had happened in those 30 years. Honestly, what I did was try and give J.J. a range of options. Neutral, suspicion, doubt … taking advantage of the fact that it’s all thoughts. I love watching silent films. Think of how effective they could be without dialogue.”

Abrams had some trepidation over the idea of handing Hamill a script with such a tiny role. “The last thing I wanted to do was insult a childhood hero,” he says, “but I also knew it was potentially one of the great drumrolls of all time.” In fact, Hamill’s first reaction was, “What a rip-off, I don’t get to run around the Death Star bumping heads with Carrie and Harrison anymore!”

But he came to agree with Abrams, especially after he counted the number of times Luke was mentioned in the screenplay – he thinks it was more than 50: “I don’t want to say, ‘That’s the greatest entrance in cinematic history’ … but certainly the greatest entrance of my career.”

Johnson turns to Hamill. “Did I ever tell you that early on when I was trying to figure out the story for this,” he says, “I had a brief idea I was chasing where I was like, ‘What if Luke is blind? What if he’s, like, the blind samurai?’ But we didn’t do it. You’re welcome. Didn’t stick.” (He adds that this was before a blind Force-using character showed up in 2016’s side film Rogue One.)

Hamill laughs, briefly contemplating how tough that twist would’ve been: “Luke, not too close to the cliff!”

He had a hard enough time with the storyline Johnson actually created for Luke, who is now what the actor calls a “disillusioned” Jedi. “This is not a joyful story to tell,” Hamill says, “my portion of it.” Johnson confirms that Hamill flat-out told him at the start that he disagreed with the direction Luke’s character was taking. “We then started a conversation,” says Johnson. “We went back and forth, and after having to explain my version, I adjusted it. And I had to justify it to myself, and that ended up being incredibly useful. I felt very close to Mark by the end. Those early days of butting heads and then coming together, that process always brings you closer.”

Hamill pushed himself to imagine how Luke could’ve gotten to his place of alienation. A rock fan who’s buddies with the Kinks’ Dave Davies, Hamill started thinking about shattered hippie dreams as he watched a Beatles documentary. “I was hearing Ringo talk about ‘Well, in those days, it was peace and love.’ And how it was a movement that largely didn’t work. I thought about that. Back in the day, I thought, by the time we get into power, there will be no more wars. Pot will be legal.” He smiles at that part. “I believed all that. I had to use that feeling of failure to relate to it.” (We do already know that Luke was training a bunch of Jedi, and Kylo Ren turned on him.)

Hamill’s grief over the loss of Fisher is still fresh, especially since the two of them got to renew their bond, and their space-sibling squabbling, after fallow decades that had given them far fewer reasons to get together. “There was now a comfort level that she had with me,” he says, “that I wasn’t out to get anything or trying to hustle her in any way. I was the same person that I was when she knew me. … I was sort of the square, stick-in-the-mud brother, and she was the wild, madcap Auntie Mame.” Promoting the movie is bringing it all back for him. “I just can’t stand it,” he says. “She’s wonderful in the movie. But it adds a layer of melancholy we don’t deserve. I’d love the emotions to come from the story, not from real life.”

I mention how hard Luke seems to have had it: never meeting his mom; finding the burnt corpses of the aunt and uncle who raised him; those well-known daddy issues; the later years of isolation. “It’s the life of a hero, man,” says Johnson. “That’s what you’ve gotta do to be a hero. You’ve gotta watch people that you love burn to death!”

Hamill notes that reality is not so great either. “Sometimes,” he says, softer than usual, “you think, ‘I’d rather have Luke’s life than mine.’”

Adam Driver has a question for me. “What,” he asks, “is emo?”

Between training for the Marines and training at Juilliard to become one of his generation’s most extraordinary actors, Driver missed some stuff, including entire music genres. But the rest of the world (including an amusing parody Twitter account) decided there’s something distinctly emo about his character, with his luxuriant hair, black outfits and periodic temper tantrums. “You have someone who’s being told that he’s special his whole life,” Driver says of his character, “and he can feel it. And he feels everything probably more intensely than the people around him, you know?”

As anyone who’s seen Driver in practically anything, even Girls, could tell you, the actor himself seems to feel things more strongly than most. “I don’t think of myself as a particularly intense person,” he says, possibly not unaware that he is making intense eye contact, and that his right knee is bouncing up and down with excess energy. “I get obsessive about certain things and, like, enjoy the process of working on something.” He’s in a Brooklyn cafe, on a tree-lined street, that seems to be his go-to spot for interviews. He arrived early, fresh from shooting the new Spike Lee movie, wearing a dark-blue sweater over black jeans and high-top Adidas. Driver has a certainty to him, a steel core, that’s a little intimidating, despite his obvious affability and big, near-constant laugh. It’s not unlike talking to Harrison Ford, who played his dad. Until Driver’s character murdered him.

Driver, raised by his mom and preacher stepdad after his parents divorced when he was seven, doesn’t flinch when I suggest his own father issues might be at work. “I don’t know that it’s always that literal,” he says. He mentions that Kylo Ren also murders Max Van Sydow’s character, who was sort of a “distant uncle” to him. “No one asks me, ‘So you have a distant-uncle problem?’ ”

John Boyega told me in 2015 that Driver stayed in character on set, but that seems to be not quite true. Driver just tries to keep focused on his character’s emotions in the face of an environment he can’t help but find ridiculous. “Watching Star Wars, it’s an action-adventure,” he says. “But shooting it, it’s a straight comedy. Stormtroopers trying to find a bathroom. People dressed as trolls, like, running into doorways. It’s hilarious.” And when he wears his helmet, he can’t see very well. “You’re supposed to be very stealth, and a tree root takes you down.”

He refuses to see his character as bratty. “There is a little bit of an elitist, royalty thing going on,” he says, reminding us that the character’s estranged mom is “the princess. I think he’s aware of maybe the privilege.” He does acknowledge playing Kylo Ren younger than his own age of 34: “I don’t want to say how much younger, 'cause people will read into it… .” He flushes, and later says he regrets mentioning it at all. If it’s a plot spoiler, it’s unclear exactly how, unless it’s related to his unexplained connection to Rey. The two apparently spend serious time together in this film. “The relationship between Kylo and Rey is awesome,” says Ridley, whom Driver calls a “great scene partner,” apparently one of his highest compliments.

At first, Driver wasn’t totally sure he wanted to be in a Star Wars movie. I’m always skeptical of Hollywood movies because they’re mostly just too broad,“ he says. But Abrams’ pitch, emphasizing the uniqueness of Kylo Ren’s character as a conflicted villain, made the sale. “Everything about him from the outside is designed to project the image that he’s assured,” he says. Only in private can he acknowledge “how un-figured-out he is … how weak.”

Driver can make a passionate case for why Kylo Ren isn’t actually a villain at all.

“It’s not like people weren’t living on the Death Star,” he says, his brown eyes shifting from puppyish to fierce without warning. He seems almost in character now. “Isn’t that also an act of terrorism against the hundreds of thousands of people who died there? Did they not have families? I see how people can point to examples that make themselves feel they’re right. And when you feel in your bones that you’re supported by a higher power on top of that, and you’re morally right, there’s no limit to what you’ll do to make sure that you win. Both sides feel this way.”

You’re starting to talk me into joining the Empire, I say. He laughs and shifts his delivery one degree over the top. “So, the rebels are bad,” he says, connecting his fist with the table. “I strongly believe this!”

On an extravagantly rainy Thursday evening in Montreal, I’m sitting at crowded, noisy Le Vin Papillon, a wine bar ranked as Canada’s fourth-best restaurant, holding a seat for a Jedi. Ridley arrives right on time, in a fuzzy faux-fur coat and a jumper dress – “the dregs of my wardrobe,” she says. Her shortish hair is in a Rey-ish topknot that makes her way too recognizable, but she doesn’t care. “This is how I have always had my hair,” says Ridley. “I am not going to change it.” She’s been in Montreal for three months, shooting a Doug Liman-directed sci-fi movie called Chaos Walking – which “is a little bit chaotic, in that we’re writing as we go and everything,” she says. “I’ve realized I don’t work well with that.”

She’s on the second of two unexpected days off thanks to co-star Tom Holland (a.k.a the latest Spider-Man) suffering an impacted wisdom tooth, but she’s still deeply exhausted.

“I need a [vitamin] B shot in my ass,” she muses, in the kind of upscale British accent that makes curses sound elegant. It seems already clear that typecasting won’t pose the kind of problem for her that it did for the likes of Hamill and Fisher. Instead, she’s just busy in a way that only a freshly minted 25-year-old movie star could be – and she still managed to fulfill a pre-fame plan to go back to college for a semester last year. “I have no control in my life at all,” she says. She has four movies on the way, not even counting the Liman one. “So there is a lot going on, and I have never had to deal with that before. I don’t think my brain can really keep up with what is going on.” She has full-blown night terrors: “I wake up and scream.”

Rey had an epochal moment in the last movie, claiming her lightsaber from the snowy ground, and with it, her power, her destiny, her place at the center of the narrative. Her turn. Ridley is still absorbing what that moment, and that character, mean to women and little girls. But she definitely felt more pressure this time around, especially because last time, “it was all so insane, it felt like a dream,” she says. “I remember saying to Rian, 'I am so fucking neurotic on this one.’ I was like, 'I am going to fuck this up. All these people think this thing. How do I do that thing?’ ”

Part of the problem may have been Ridley’s tendency to downplay what she pulled off in the first movie. Her heart-tugging solo scenes in the first act, especially the moment where she eats her sad little “one half portion” of green space bread, created enormous goodwill, in seconds, for a character no one had seen before. She mentions Harrison Ford’s effusive praise for that eating scene, to the point where he was “getting emotional.” “I don’t know,” she says with a shrug, ultimately giving credit for the impact to Abrams and the movie’s cinematographer, Dan Mindel. “I was just eating!”

But in other ways, Rey has given her confidence. On her current film, she says, she was offered a stunt double for a scene where a door would swing open and knock her back. She took Liman aside and said, “'Doug, I don’t need a stunt double to do that.’ And I thought, 'I don’t know if this would’ve happened if it was Tom Holland.’”

Unlike almost everyone else in the world, Ridley has known for years who Rey’s parents are, since Abrams told her on the set of The Force Awakens. Ridley believes that nothing ever changed: “I thought what I was told in the beginning is what it is.” Which is odd, because Johnson insists he had free rein to come up with any answer he wanted to the question. “I wasn’t given any directive as to what that had to be,” he says. “I was never given the information that she is this or she is that.”

The idea that Johnson and Abrams somehow landed on the same answer does seem to suggest that Rey’s parents aren’t some random, never-before-seen characters. All that said, Abrams cryptically hints there may have been more coordination between him and Johnson than the latter director has let on, so who knows what’s going on here – they may be messing with us to preserve one of Abrams’ precious mystery boxes. In any case, Ridley loves the speculation: Her favorite fan theories involve immaculate conception and time travel. It seems more likely that she’s either Luke’s daughter or his niece, but again, who knows.

Back in 2015, Ridley told me she was fine with the idea of being seen as Rey forever, the way Fisher was always Leia. Now she’s changed her mind. “There are literally no similarities with Carrie’s story and mine,” she says, adding that while Fisher ultimately embraced writing over acting, she plans on continuing to “inhabit” as many characters as possible. On the other hand, “a lot of Rey is me,” she says, “but that is not me being Rey. That is parts of me being a character as Rey, because how could it not? So in that sense, I understand it, because so much of Leia is Carrie.”

This trilogy will end with Abrams’ Last Jedi sequel, and after that, it sounds like the main thrust of the franchise will move into Johnson’s mysterious new movies, which look to be unconnected to the previous saga. As far as Abrams is concerned, that will be the end of the Skywalker story. “I do see it that way,” he says. “But the future is in flux.”

As far as Ridley is concerned, the future of Rey is pretty much set. She doesn’t want to play the character after the next movie. “No,” she says flatly. “For me, I didn’t really know what I was signing on to. I hadn’t read the script, but from what I could tell, it was really nice people involved, so I was just like, 'Awesome.’ Now I think I am even luckier than I knew then, to be part of something that feels so like coming home now.”

But, um, doesn’t that sort of sound like a yes? “No,” she says again, smiling a little. “No, no, no. I am really, really excited to do the third thing and round it out, because ultimately, what I was signing on to was three films. So in my head, it’s three films. I think it will feel like the right time to round it out.”

And how about coming back in 30 years, as her predecessors did? She considers this soberly, between bites of Brussels sprouts roasted on the stalk. (We split the dish, which means she got … one half portion.) “Who knows? I honestly feel like the world may end in the next 30 years, so, if in 30 years we are not living underground in a series of interconnected cells … then sure. Maybe. But again, it’s like, who knows. Because the thing I thought was so amazing, was people really wanted it. And it was done by people who really love it.”

She thinks even harder about it, this new Star Wars trilogy that we’ve made up on the spot. “How old will I be?” she asks, before doing the math. “55.” She looks very young for a moment, as she tries to picture herself as a middle-aged Jedi. Then she gives up. It’s time to go, anyway; she has a 5:25 a.m. pickup tomorrow for her new movie. “Fuck,” Ridley says. “I can’t think that far ahead.”

###

#oscar isaac #poe dameron #star wars #the last jedi #rolling stone #rian johnson #mark hamill #luke skywalker #adam driver #kylo ren #daisy ridley #rey #john boyega #finn #carrie fisher #general leia #jj abrams

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son-of-alderaan · 7 years ago

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Jedi Confidential: Inside the Dark New 'Star Wars' Movie

The cast and director of 'The Last Jedi' on the story's secrets, a disaffected Skywalker and a death in the family

A long time ago, a grade-schooler got his hands on a spaceship. He followed the assembly instructions as best he could, snapping on the cannons, the landing gear, the tiny interstellar-chess table. Soon enough, Rian Johnson was holding his very own Millennium Falcon. "The first thing I did," he recalls, "was throw it across the room, to see how it would look flying." He grins. "And it broke."

Johnson grew up, went to film school, made some good stuff, including the entertainingly twisted 2012 sci-fi drama Looper. He's nearly 44 now, though his cherub cheeks and gentle manner make it easy to picture the kid he was (too easy, maybe – he's trying to grow back a goatee he shaved); even his neatly pressed short-sleeve button-down has a picture-day feel. In late October, he's sitting in an office suite inside Disney's Burbank studios that he's called home for many months, where a whiteboard declares, "We're working on Star Wars: The Last Jedi (in case you forgot)." Johnson is the film's writer-director, which means he ended up with the world's finest collection of replacement toys, including a life-size Falcon set that nearly brought him to tears when he stepped onto it. He treated it all with what sounds like an intriguing mix of reverence and mischief – cast members keep saying nothing was quite what they expected. "I shook up the box a little bit," he says, with that same grin.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, everything is broken. In the months since the franchise stirred back to life in 2015's The Force Awakens, it has felt rather like some incautious child grabbed civilization itself and threw it across the room – and, midflight, many of us realized we were the evil Empire all along, complete with a new ruler that even latter-day George Lucas at his most CGI-addled would reject as too grotesque and implausible a character. Weirdly, the saga saw it all coming – or maybe it's not so weird when you consider the Vietnam War commentary embedded in Lucas' original trilogy, or the warnings about democracy's fragility in his prequels. In the J.J. Abrams-directed The Force Awakens, a revanchist movement calling itself the First Order assembles in Triumph of the Will-style marches, showing the shocking strength of an ideology that was supposed to have been thoroughly defeated long ago. What's left of the government is collapsing and feckless, so the only hope in sight is a band of good guys known as the Resistance. Familiar, this all sounds.

"It's somewhat a reflection of society," acknowledges the saga's new star, Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey, and who has gone from unknown London actress to full-blown movie star nearly as fast as her character went from desert scavenger to budding Jedi. "But also it is escapism, because there are creatures and there are people running around with fucking lasers and shit. So, I think, a wonderful mix of both."

And the worse the world gets, the more we need that far-off galaxy, says Gwendoline Christie, who plays stormtrooper honcho Captain Phasma (as well as Game of Thrones' Brienne of Tarth): "During testing times, there's nothing wrong with being transported by art. I think we all need it. Many of us are united in our love for this one thing." The Last Jedi, due December 15th, is the second episode of the current trilogy, and advance word has suggested that, as in the original middle film, The Empire Strikes Back, things get darker this time. But Johnson pushes back on that, though he does admit some influence from the morally ambiguous 2000s reboot of Battlestar Galactica (which is funny, because Lucas considered the Seventies TV show a rip-off and urged a lawsuit – long since settled – against it). "That's one thing I hope people will be surprised about with the movie," Johnson says. "I think it's very funny. The trailers have been kind of dark – the movie has that, but I also made a real conscious effort for it to be a riot. I want it to have all the things tonally that I associate with Star Wars, which is not just the Wagner of it. It's also the Flash Gordon."

As of late October, almost no one has seen it yet, but Johnson seems eerily free of apprehension about its prospects. He exuded a similar calm on set, according to Adam Driver, who plays Han and Leia's Darth Vader-worshipping prodigal son, Kylo Ren. "If I had that job, I would be stressed out," he says. "To pick up where someone left off and carry it forward, but also introduce a vocabulary that hasn't been seen in a Star Wars movie before, is a tall order and really hard to get right. He's incredibly smart and doesn't feel the need to let everyone know it." ("It felt like we were playing the whole time," says Kelly Marie Tran, cast as the biggest new character, Rose Tico.) A few weeks after we talk, Lucasfilm announces that Johnson signed on to make three more Star Warsfilms in the coming decade, the first that step outside of the prevailing Skywalker saga, indicating that Disney and Lucasfilm matriarch Kathleen Kennedy are more than delighted with Last Jedi. And Kennedy's not easily delighted, having recently replaced the directors of a Han Solo spinoff midshoot and removed original Episode 9 director Colin Trevorrow in favor of Abrams' return.

The Force Awakens' biggest triumph was the introduction of new characters worth caring about, led by Rey and Kylo Ren, plus the likes of John Boyega's stormtrooper-defector Finn, Oscar Isaac's Poe Dameron and more. Kylo Ren (born Ben Solo) lightsaber-shanked Harrison Ford's Han, depriving Johnson of one coveted action figure – but the film left us with Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia, now the general who leads the Resistance, and the climactic reveal of Mark Hamill's now-grizzled Luke Skywalker.

The Last Jedi will be Fisher's last Star Wars movie. In the waning days of the cruel year of 2016, she went into cardiac arrest on an airplane, dying four days later. Less than a month afterward, 500,000 or so people assembled in Washington, D.C., for that city's Women's March, and Leia was everywhere, in posters bearing her doughnut-haired image circa 1977, with accompanying slogans ("A Woman's Place Is in the Resistance" was, perhaps, the best).

Johnson had grown close with Fisher, and is glad to hear that I visited her psychedelically decorated Beverly Hills house a couple of years back, where she did almost an entire hilarious interview prone in bed. Afterward, she cheerily cracked jokes about drugs and mental illness in front of a visiting Disney publicist. "You got to experience a little bit of that magical sphere that she created," says Johnson, who went over the script with her in that same bedroom. "I'm happy I got to poke my head into that, briefly, and know her even a little bit."

He left her part in the film untouched. "We didn't end up changing a thing," says Johnson. "Luckily, we had a totally complete performance from her." So it is now Abrams who has to figure out how to grapple with Fisher and Leia's sudden absence. (He is characteristically gnomic on the matter: "It's a sad reality," he says. "In terms of going forward ... time will tell what ends up getting done.")

Overall, Johnson enjoyed what seems like an almost unfathomable level of autonomy in shaping The Last Jedi's story. He says no one dictated a single plot point, that he simply decided what happens next. And he's baffled by fans who are concerned by the idea that they're "making it up as we go along": "The truth is, stories are made up! Whether somebody made this whole thing up 10 years ago and put it on a whiteboard and we all have to stick to that, or whether we're organically finding it as we move forward, it doesn't mean that any less thought is being put into it."

Mark Hamill's single scene in The Force Awakens lasts all of one minute, and he doesn't say a thing. But it's an indelible piece of screen acting with real gravitas, from an underrated performer who had become better known for Broadway and voice-over work – he's been the definitive animated Joker since the early Nineties. ("With voice-over," Hamill says, "I thought, 'This is great! I can let myself go to hell physically! I don't have to memorize lines!'") As Rey approaches him on the lonely mountaintop where's he's presumably spent years studying the Jedi equivalent of the Talmud, Luke Skywalker's bearded face cycles through grief, terror and longing.

"I didn't look at that as 'Oh, this is going to be my big chance,'" says Hamill, who has just shown up at Johnson's offices and plopped down next to him, carrying a large thermos of coffee in the right hand that Darth Vader once chopped off. He has a trimmed-down version of his elder-Jedi beard, which he's grown to appreciate: "I shaved, and I thought, 'You know what, the beard does cover up the jowl.'"

He admits to having had "frustrations over being over-associated" with Star Wars over the years – his Skywalking cost him a chance at even auditioning to reprise his stage role as Mozart in the film of Amadeus – "but nothing that caused me any deep anguish." He still spent the decades since Return of the Jediacting and raising a family with Marilou, his wife of 39 years. And as for his current return to the role of Luke? "It's a culmination of my career," he says. "If I focused on how enormous it really is, I don't think I could function. I told Rian that. I said, as absurd as it sounds, 'I'm going to have to pretend this is an art-house film that no one is going to see.' "

For his Force Awakens scene, he says, "I didn't know – and I don't think J.J. really knew – specifically what had happened in those 30 years. Honestly, what I did was try and give J.J. a range of options. Neutral, suspicion, doubt … taking advantage of the fact that it's all thoughts. I love watching silent films. Think of how effective they could be without dialogue."

Abrams had some trepidation over the idea of handing Hamill a script with such a tiny role. "The last thing I wanted to do was insult a childhood hero," he says, "but I also knew it was potentially one of the great drumrolls of all time." In fact, Hamill's first reaction was, "What a rip-off, I don't get to run around the Death Star bumping heads with Carrie and Harrison anymore!"

But he came to agree with Abrams, especially after he counted the number of times Luke was mentioned in the screenplay – he thinks it was more than 50: "I don't want to say, 'That's the greatest entrance in cinematic history' . . . but certainly the greatest entrance of my career."

Johnson turns to Hamill. "Did I ever tell you that early on when I was trying to figure out the story for this," he says, "I had a brief idea I was chasing where I was like, 'What if Luke is blind? What if he's, like, the blind samurai?' But we didn't do it. You're welcome. Didn't stick." (He adds that this was before a blind Force-using character showed up in 2016's side film Rogue One.)

Hamill laughs, briefly contemplating how tough that twist would've been: "Luke, not too close to the cliff!" He had a hard enough time with the storyline Johnson actually created for Luke, who is now what the actor calls a "disillusioned" Jedi. "This is not a joyful story to tell," Hamill says, "my portion of it." Johnson confirms that Hamill flat-out told him at the start that he disagreed with the direction Luke's character was taking. "We then started a conversation," says Johnson. "We went back and forth, and after having to explain my version, I adjusted it. And I had to justify it to myself, and that ended up being incredibly useful. I felt very close to Mark by the end. Those early days of butting heads and then coming together, that process always brings you closer."

Hamill pushed himself to imagine how Luke could've gotten to his place of alienation. A rock fan who's buddies with the Kinks' Dave Davies, Hamill started thinking about shattered hippie dreams as he watched a Beatles documentary. "I was hearing Ringo talk about 'Well, in those days, it was peace and love.' And how it was a movement that largely didn't work. I thought about that. Back in the day, I thought, by the time we get into power, there will be no more wars. Pot will be legal." He smiles at that part. "I believed all that. I had to use that feeling of failure to relate to it." (We do already know that Luke was training a bunch of Jedi, and Kylo Ren turned on him.) Hamill's grief over the loss of Fisher is still fresh, especially since the two of them got to renew their bond, and their space-sibling squabbling, after fallow decades that had given them far fewer reasons to get together. "There was now a comfort level that she had with me," he says, "that I wasn't out to get anything or trying to hustle her in any way. I was the same person that I was when she knew me. ... I was sort of the square, stick-in-the-mud brother, and she was the wild, madcap Auntie Mame." Promoting the movie is bringing it all back for him. "I just can't stand it," he says. "She's wonderful in the movie. But it adds a layer of melancholy we don't deserve. I'd love the emotions to come from the story, not from real life."

I mention how hard Luke seems to have had it: never meeting his mom; finding the burnt corpses of the aunt and uncle who raised him; those well-known daddy issues; the later years of isolation. "It's the life of a hero, man," says Johnson. "That's what you've gotta do to be a hero. You've gotta watch people that you love burn to death!" Hamill notes that reality is not so great either. "Sometimes," he says, softer than usual, "you think, 'I'd rather have Luke's life than mine.'"

Adam Driver has a question for me. "What," he asks, "is emo?" Between training for the Marines and training at Juilliard to become one of his generation's most extraordinary actors, Driver missed some stuff, including entire music genres. But the rest of the world (including an amusing parody Twitter account) decided there's something distinctly emo about his character, with his luxuriant hair, black outfits and periodic temper tantrums. "You have someone who's being told that he's special his whole life," Driver says of his character, "and he can feel it. And he feels everything probably more intensely than the people around him, you know?"

As anyone who's seen Driver in practically anything, even Girls, could tell you, the actor himself seems to feel things more strongly than most. "I don't think of myself as a particularly intense person," he says, possibly not unaware that he is making intense eye contact, and that his right knee is bouncing up and down with excess energy. "I get obsessive about certain things and, like, enjoy the process of working on something." He's in a Brooklyn cafe, on a tree-lined street, that seems to be his go-to spot for interviews. He arrived early, fresh from shooting the new Spike Lee movie, wearing a dark-blue sweater over black jeans and high-top Adidas. Driver has a certainty to him, a steel core, that's a little intimidating, despite his obvious affability and big, near-constant laugh. It's not unlike talking to Harrison Ford, who played his dad. Until Driver's character murdered him.

Driver, raised by his mom and preacher stepdad after his parents divorced when he was seven, doesn't flinch when I suggest his own father issues might be at work. "I don't know that it's always that literal," he says. He mentions that Kylo Ren also murders Max Van Sydow's character, who was sort of a "distant uncle" to him. "No one asks me, 'So you have a distant-uncle problem?' "

John Boyega told me in 2015 that Driver stayed in character on set, but that seems to be not quite true. Driver just tries to keep focused on his character's emotions in the face of an environment he can't help but find ridiculous. "Watching Star Wars, it's an action-adventure," he says. "But shooting it, it's a straight comedy. Stormtroopers trying to find a bathroom. People dressed as trolls, like, running into doorways. It's hilarious." And when he wears his helmet, he can't see very well. "You're supposed to be very stealth, and a tree root takes you down."

He refuses to see his character as bratty. "There is a little bit of an elitist, royalty thing going on," he says, reminding us that the character's estranged mom is "the princess. I think he's aware of maybe the privilege." He does acknowledge playing Kylo Ren younger than his own age of 34: "I don't want to say how much younger, 'cause people will read into it. . . ." He flushes, and later says he regrets mentioning it at all. If it's a plot spoiler, it's unclear exactly how, unless it's related to his unexplained connection to Rey. The two apparently spend serious time together in this film. "The relationship between Kylo and Rey is awesome," says Ridley, whom Driver calls a "great scene partner," apparently one of his highest compliments.

At first, Driver wasn't totally sure he wanted to be in a Star Wars movie. I'm always skeptical of Hollywood movies because they're mostly just too broad," he says. But Abrams' pitch, emphasizing the uniqueness of Kylo Ren's character as a conflicted villain, made the sale. "Everything about him from the outside is designed to project the image that he's assured," he says. Only in private can he acknowledge "how un-figured-out he is … how weak."

Driver can make a passionate case for why Kylo Ren isn't actually a villain at all.

"It's not like people weren't living on the Death Star," he says, his brown eyes shifting from puppyish to fierce without warning. He seems almost in character now. "Isn't that also an act of terrorism against the hundreds of thousands of people who died there? Did they not have families? I see how people can point to examples that make themselves feel they're right. And when you feel in your bones that you're supported by a higher power on top of that, and you're morally right, there's no limit to what you'll do to make sure that you win. Both sides feel this way."

You're starting to talk me into joining the Empire, I say. He laughs and shifts his delivery one degree over the top. "So, the rebels are bad," he says, connecting his fist with the table. "I strongly believe this!"

On an extravagantly rainy Thursday evening in Montreal, I'm sitting at crowded, noisy Le Vin Papillon, a wine bar ranked as Canada's fourth-best restaurant, holding a seat for a Jedi. Ridley arrives right on time, in a fuzzy faux-fur coat and a jumper dress – "the dregs of my wardrobe," she says. Her shortish hair is in a Rey-ish topknot that makes her way too recognizable, but she doesn't care. "This is how I have always had my hair," says Ridley. "I am not going to change it." She's been in Montreal for three months, shooting a Doug Liman-directed sci-fi movie called Chaos Walking – which "is a little bit chaotic, in that we're writing as we go and everything," she says. "I've realized I don't work well with that."

She's on the second of two unexpected days off thanks to co-star Tom Holland (a.k.a the latest Spider-Man) suffering an impacted wisdom tooth, but she's still deeply exhausted. "I need a [vitamin] B shot in my ass," she muses, in the kind of upscale British accent that makes curses sound elegant. It seems already clear that typecasting won't pose the kind of problem for her that it did for the likes of Hamill and Fisher. Instead, she's just busy in a way that only a freshly minted 25-year-old movie star could be – and she still managed to fulfill a pre-fame plan to go back to college for a semester last year. "I have no control in my life at all," she says. She has four movies on the way, not even counting the Liman one. "So there is a lot going on, and I have never had to deal with that before. I don't think my brain can really keep up with what is going on." She has full-blown night terrors: "I wake up and scream."

Rey had an epochal moment in the last movie, claiming her lightsaber from the snowy ground, and with it, her power, her destiny, her place at the center of the narrative. Her turn. Ridley is still absorbing what that moment, and that character, mean to women and little girls. But she definitely felt more pressure this time around, especially because last time, "it was all so insane, it felt like a dream," she says. "I remember saying to Rian, 'I am so fucking neurotic on this one.' I was like, 'I am going to fuck this up. All these people think this thing. How do I do that thing?' "

Part of the problem may have been Ridley's tendency to downplay what she pulled off in the first movie. Her heart-tugging solo scenes in the first act, especially the moment where she eats her sad little "one half portion" of green space bread, created enormous goodwill, in seconds, for a character no one had seen before. She mentions Harrison Ford's effusive praise for that eating scene, to the point where he was "getting emotional." "I don't know," she says with a shrug, ultimately giving credit for the impact to Abrams and the movie's cinematographer, Dan Mindel. "I was just eating!"

But in other ways, Rey has given her confidence. On her current film, she says, she was offered a stunt double for a scene where a door would swing open and knock her back. She took Liman aside and said, "'Doug, I don't need a stunt double to do that.' And I thought, 'I don't know if this would've happened if it was Tom Holland.'"

Unlike almost everyone else in the world, Ridley has known for years who Rey's parents are, since Abrams told her on the set of The Force Awakens. Ridley believes that nothing ever changed: "I thought what I was told in the beginning is what it is." Which is odd, because Johnson insists he had free rein to come up with any answer he wanted to the question. "I wasn't given any directive as to what that had to be," he says. "I was never given the information that she is this or she is that."

The idea that Johnson and Abrams somehow landed on the same answer does seem to suggest that Rey's parents aren't some random, never-before-seen characters. All that said, Abrams cryptically hints there may have been more coordination between him and Johnson than the latter director has let on, so who knows what's going on here – they may be messing with us to preserve one of Abrams' precious mystery boxes. In any case, Ridley loves the speculation: Her favorite fan theories involve immaculate conception and time travel. It seems more likely that she's either Luke's daughter or his niece, but again, who knows.

Back in 2015, Ridley told me she was fine with the idea of being seen as Rey forever, the way Fisher was always Leia. Now she's changed her mind. "There are literally no similarities with Carrie's story and mine," she says, adding that while Fisher ultimately embraced writing over acting, she plans on continuing to "inhabit" as many characters as possible. On the other hand, "a lot of Rey is me," she says, "but that is not me being Rey. That is parts of me being a character as Rey, because how could it not? So in that sense, I understand it, because so much of Leia is Carrie."

This trilogy will end with Abrams' Last Jedi sequel, and after that, it sounds like the main thrust of the franchise will move into Johnson's mysterious new movies, which look to be unconnected to the previous saga. As far as Abrams is concerned, that will be the end of the Skywalker story. "I do see it that way," he says. "But the future is in flux."

As far as Ridley is concerned, the future of Rey is pretty much set. She doesn't want to play the character after the next movie. "No," she says flatly. "For me, I didn't really know what I was signing on to. I hadn't read the script, but from what I could tell, it was really nice people involved, so I was just like, 'Awesome.' Now I think I am even luckier than I knew then, to be part of something that feels so like coming home now."

But, um, doesn't that sort of sound like a yes? "No," she says again, smiling a little. "No, no, no. I am really, really excited to do the third thing and round it out, because ultimately, what I was signing on to was three films. So in my head, it's three films. I think it will feel like the right time to round it out." And how about coming back in 30 years, as her predecessors did? She considers this soberly, between bites of Brussels sprouts roasted on the stalk. (We split the dish, which means she got ... one half portion.) "Who knows? I honestly feel like the world may end in the next 30 years, so, if in 30 years we are not living underground in a series of interconnected cells ... then sure. Maybe. But again, it's like, who knows. Because the thing I thought was so amazing, was people really wanted it. And it was done by people who really love it." She thinks even harder about it, this new Star Wars trilogy that we've made up on the spot. "How old will I be?" she asks, before doing the math. "55." She looks very young for a moment, as she tries to picture herself as a middle-aged Jedi. Then she gives up. It's time to go, anyway; she has a 5:25 a.m. pickup tomorrow for her new movie. "Fuck," Ridley says. "I can't think that far ahead." (x)

#rian johnson #mark hamill #adam driver #daisy ridley #star wars tlj #interview #rolling stone magazine #long post

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shakingthestars · 7 years ago

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Final predictions about TLJ before the world premiere

Today is the world premiere of TLJ. Before we possibly get major leaks, here is the final version of my bingo. After that, I will keep myself away from spoiler until I enter the theaters on December 13th, 9.45 a.m C.C.T Paris.

Very hard to select the information so there is nothing about ii.e. Ahch-To or Canto Bight. Plus the bingo is very oriented to Kylo, Rey, Luke and Snoke. Not that the other characters and arc ain’t important but IMO this is where the heart of the story is. A lot of these predictions are based on the discussions + metas that I wrote on the reyloskyforum.net.

I) First line: Kylo and Rey’s relationship

Regarding Kylo and Rey, I believe that romantic drama is indeed about them but romance is not central to their relationship and the plot in TLJ. The most important dimension IMO is that they share this unprecedented connection through the Force that throw them at the center of the battle between the Dark Side and the Light Side. Therefore, they are key to achieve together the balance of the Force. Their connection reminds me a lot of E.T. and Elliott’s connection since I saw a lot of callbacks to E.T. the Extraterrestrial in TFA

II) Second line: Rey’s background

Regarding Rey, I am definitely convinced that she is not a Skywalker:

Rey: I know all about waiting..for my family

Maz: Dear child. I see your eyes: you already know the truth. Whomever you’re waiting for on Jakku, they’re never coming back

For me, Maz’s line about “people she is waiting for are never coming back” always made it pretty clear that Rey’s family would never ever show up. Rey is a young person who desperately craves for belonging and as Maz said: “the belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead”. In other words, she may not find her birth family, the one of the past, but she can still find a family, the one of the future.

I don’t need Rey to be the daughter or granddaughter of a character we already know. IMO, the importance of her origins is in something ancient, maybe connected with the origins of the Force given Colin Trevorrow’s statements before he was fired :

I’ve seen all of the theories… What I do know is that we’re going to make sure that that answer is deeply and profoundly satisfying, because Rey is a character that is important in this universe, not just in the context of The Force Awakens but in the entire galaxy, and she deserves it. So we’ll make sure that that answer is something that feels like it was—it’s something that happened a long time ago [in a galaxy] far, far away, we’re just telling you what happened.”

We know from Daisy Ridley that there is no immaculate conception with Rey contrary to Anakin. So I came to speculate that Disney/LF might have got some inspiration from Disney movie Atlantis - the Lost Empire and even more from the Castle in the Sky (that Disney apparently used as inspiration for Atlantis - the Lost Empire). In The Castle in the Sky, (Lu)Sheeta is the long lost descendant of the royal family of Laputa, a floating castle in the Sky whose powerful destructive energy comes from a crystal. No time to make a long meta but I saw similarities with both The Castle in the Sky and Atlantis - the Lost Empire in Rogue One but also in TFA. And my feeling is that kyber crystals are going to be important in that story. As for Rey Kenobi, I am convinced that Rey parallels Obi-Wan more than any other character. Still, I remain cautious because parallels ain’t an ultimate proof of lineage, i.e. Finn parallels Luke as much as Rey parallels Obi-Wan in TFA, which doesn’t make Finn Luke’s son. So Rey Kenobi IMO ain’t the most important thing in Rey’s background. For me, it would be the cherry on the cake.

III) Third line: Kylo Ren’s background

Regarding Kylo Ren’s background, he is IMO the only and last Skywalker child. My feeling is that his abusive connection with Snoke is the key element of his background much more than having neglecting parents. I tend to see Snoke as the Star Wars version of any manipulative Disney villain that target a young character either from the cradle in order to achieve a specific plan. And a lot of Disney villain target and manipulates a character either to get an artifact (Ursula/Ariel ==> get the trident) or to use that character as a mean to maintain themselves alive and well (Gothel/Rapunzel ==> uses her power to maintain herself young) or to crush that character (Maleficent/Aurora ==> kill her). Since the ST is produced by Disney/LF, there are callbacks to Disney movies. And a lot of people may be surprised but the trio villain/Prince(ss) in distress/Prince(ss) to the rescue is not what it seems to be. Once one understands that Snoke got the role of the Disney villain, Ben the role of the Disney Prince(ss) to rescue and Rey the role of the Disney Prince(ss) on the rescue, the perception of Kylo Ren as a villain completely changes. At least, this is how mine evolved. And Disney movies are much about going beyond the first impression of a character especially when a character is called a monster at the beginning of his journey (i.e. Quasimodo, Beast;, Elsa). And Disney are also about monster misjudged by the others who find a way to regain their humanity in the world’s eyes:

Georges Lucas: I like the idea that the person you thought was the villain is really the victim, and that the story is really about the villain trying to regain his humanity,

So my feeling that both Kylo Ren’s background and fate in TLJ will be tragic because he is a character that got much hate for his actions and especially for the patricide, which is perfectly normal. But my feeling is that he is not meant to remain a villain until the end of the ST to die unredeemed or get a redemption by the very end like Vader. I think that the tragic thing about Kylo Ren is that he developed a strong connection with Snoke from the early age and that Snoke was the only one to help him when his raw power got uncontrollable. My feeling is that his commitment is actually more to Snoke than the FO. I think that Snoke represents for him what a dark version of E.T. could have become for Elliott: a possessive,exclusive and toxic friend. And it is also my feeling that Snoke had something very precise in mind by targeting that child in particular and being interested in his power. Their relationship is not a copy of Palpatine and Anakin’s. There is something much more exclusive. We know from Serkis that Snoke is much darker than Palpatine but also very vulnerable. So my feeling is that Snoke and Kylo’s connection may have become so strong through the years that Snoke actually needs Kylo Ren to survive. In any case, I don’t think that Kylo Ren can cut his ties that easily to Snoke. . So I think that Kylo’s allegiance will slowly shift: his allegiance to Rey will become stronger than his allegiance to Snoke in the throne room. My feeling is that he will try to cut it but I don’t think that Snoke will let him go that easily. The TFA novelization makes it pretty clear that Snoke sees himself as an architect polishing amasterpiece. This is something he has been dedicating himself for decades so I hardly imagine Snoke throwing his masterpiece away like that or letting his masterpiece tueining his back on him without reacting

IV) Fourth line: Final arc of the movie

Regarding the final arc of the movie, the analysis of the timeline gives me the feeling that Supremacy is not the real climax of the movie. From the analysis of Finn and TRey’s costume + physical state, I put my money that the battle on Crait is the final battle of the movie. Therefore, Supremacy can’t be the climax. Plus I fins it strange how the SW crew keep spoiling what happens on Supremacy (Finn vs. Phasma and Rey vs. Snoke) and keeps showing Crait as a random battle although Rian stated that Crait would play a key role in the movie. So IMO, Crait is where all characters will converge for the final arc. My feeling is that Luke will show up unexpedtedly on Crait after being out of screen for a good while since the Ahch-To arc. I also believe thay Snoke will show up there : I just can’t believe that Snoke would make an appearance in the movie just to get defeated pathetically on his own ship and then letting the FO letting the FO battling on Crait. Serkis confirmed that the guy has a huge agenda, is very powerful and hides his true nature. He is someone very determined and full of resent: IMO, there is no way he abandons the fight to go hiding like a coward. And TLJ is the second movie of the trilogy, which means that it should represent the lowest point. If Snoke has a huge agenda, I guess he will succeed in achieving it and the FO shall ultimately win over the Resistance on Crait.

V) Fifth line: Shocking outcome

Regarding, Rian did confirm that there would be a shocking outcome coming naturally and romantic drama. IMO, TLJ shall end with a major stake and conflict rising from a shocking outcome.

I exclude any scenario involving that Luke, Kylo and Rey all end up by the same side

Scenario 1: Light Luke/Kylo/Rey

==> Game over for Snoke and the FO

Scenario 2: Dark! Luke/Kylo/Rey

== Game over for Leia and the Resistance

I exclude any scenario involving Luke becoming the center of the story because Mark confirmed that the ST is not about Luke’s story any more.

Scenario 3 : Dark! Luke vs. Light Kylo and Rey

==> would involve to bring Luke back to the Light. Who should do it? Leia is the most obvious candidate but this is not the story of the Skywalker twins. Kylo is his nephew but his relationship with Luke isn’t the centerpiece of the ST. As for Rey, why would she go after Luke to bring him back to the Light if he is neither her belonging behind (father) nor her belonging ahead (lover)

Scenario 4 : Light! Luke vs. Dark Kylo and Rey

==> This scenario would make Luke the hero of the ST once again

I exclude the following deaths

Scenario 5: Luke’s death

==> We already lose a belove OT character as shocking outcome in TFA. Plus, what’s the point to have Luke back to the Resistance by the end of the movie to help the Resistance if one makes him die.

Scenario 6: Rey’s death/near-death state

==> They’re not gonna make the heroine die or end up in near-death state. That brings nothing to the story.

I also rule out these scenarios although IMO there is a possibility that it happens:

Scenario 7: Dark! Rey vs. Light! Luke/Kylo

==> Although there are hints at Rey’s darkness, I don’t think she will fall to the DS contrary to so many people seem to think. The analysis of the timeline tells me that she’ll escape Supremacy with bruise but safe and sound. Plus, there were photos on Crait showing Rey by Finn and Poe’s side as she already has her bruise, bruise that she got on Supremacy. If Rey doesn’t turn to the DS on Supremacy as she is fighting against PG and uses he raw power, I don’t think she is supposed to turn to the DS later

Scenario 8: Kylo and Rey flee together, away from the FO and the Resistance

==> Rian said that there is romantic drama, which by definition means that there will be obstacle to a romance happening. If Kylo and Rey flee together, isn’t it the confirmation of a romance? And where would be the romantic drama? Kylo and Rey are at the center of the balance and together represent a big threat to Snoke and his agenda. If I would be Snoke, I would make anything to get them separated

Scenario 9: Kylo’s tragic fate is IMO the shocking outcome of TLJ

I personally believe that Snoke will play a major role in this because if I would be Snoke, I would do anything to end my physical vulnerability either by acquiring a powerful artifact or by using the Force energy of someone else. I even believe in the possiblity that Snoke isn’t meant to remain old, vulnerable and creepy-looking. I would put my money that one of his goal is to become young again, all powerful and handsome. In other words, the same kind of tyran that young Vader intended to be had he not ended up like a piece of burnt fleh. And who better than Vader’s spawn himself coud help him achieving that goal? One of my headcanon is either Snoke uses Ben to acquire something valuable and crushes him or he uses his power energy to become all powerful again. By tragic fate, I mean something close to near-death state, possession, dark prophecy, etc...Something that make Kylo Ren a villain the audience can truly relate to.

Why do I believe in that kind of scenario rather than Dark! Luke or Dark! Rey?

Because Kylo Ren is at the center of major stakes within the contexte the ST and even within the context of the entire franchise:

1) The unending tragedy of a family...

Kylo Ren is the only and last descendant of the main family of the entire franchise, a family plagued with unending dramas:

#Who is the next?#

It was confirmed that Leia was supposed to have a bigger role in Episode 9 so she was supposed to survive Episode 8. I already pointed out that Luke’s tragic death would bring much. The audience already got a shock with a belove OT character’s death in Episode 7. And even if Luke’s death would be a big shock to the audience, it doesn’t raise any major stake regarding the fate of the Skywalker family. Losing the only last Skywalker child on the other end would give a dramatic turn. The tragic fate of a young male/female is always more tragic than a older character because...

2) A mother wanting her only child back...

Can you imagine how tragic it would be for Leia who begun her life having lost her mother and possibly end her life having lost her son. Leia all alone bears the tragedies of the Skywalker family in regard to all the people she lose during her whole life. And friendly reminder that this broken woman is clinging to the hope to have her son back. And there is even something more this woman obviously wishes :

Source: from Poe Dameron comic (canon)

“Never imagined this,” Han had murmured, sitting up in their bed late at night. Ben’s tiny head resting in the crook of his father’s arm. “Having a kid. Even wanting a kid. But now he’s here and-”

“And you’re a dad.” Leia had learned closer, unable to resist the chance to tease her husband. “Just think hotshot. Someday you might even be a granddad.”

Han’s chuckle had warmed her. “Speak for yourself, sweetheart. Me, I ain’t ever getting old.”

Source: Bloodline

I don’t believe in Rey Solo : it was debunked several times. And Poe ain’t Leia’s son. So there is only one person in that galaxy far way who could make Leia a grandmother one day. And here is why Kylo Ren is at the center of the drama in regard to the Skywalker family. Make the only Skywalker child die or give him a tragic fate by the end of the ST: bye bye Skywalker family! Although I am no Reylo for reproductive imperative because Rey deserves to be seen as something else than a utero, this is something to keep in mind. The Skywalker family has suffered dramas and Kylo Ren is at the center of the drama in the ST. Another interesting thing is that Carrie Fisher’s death didn’t to represent a massive drama to a point that Rian felt the need to edit TLJ. We know that Leia was supposed to have a bigger role in Episode 9, but in that kind of scenario her absence could be easily explained. If I had lose my mother, then my adoptive parents, then my husband, the tragic fate of my only child on top of that would make me lose the will to fight and live.

3) A heroine searching for her belonging...

The ST is the story of Rey and how the story of that young woman fits in this great franchise in which the Skywalker family was always at the center of the plot. Rey is a great character in herself: she doesn’t need to be related to the Skywalker, the Palpatine, the Kenobis to be important. She is not there either just to serve as a tool for a man’s narrative. She is strong, able to handle herself and wise enough to make her own choices. And what does this young woman ever wanted in her life? To have a family!

J.J.Abrams: There was this powerful idea that what she desperately wanted was belonging, which she will get, simply not the way she expects

In other words, Rey is not someone full of ideals who gets involved in a fight because she believes so strongly in the ideal of the Resistance and that fight will become her whole life.Contrary to Anakin and Luke, she has no roots either to follow the Jedi’s path. Anakin always wanted to become a Jedi and Luke wanted to become a Jedi like his father. The only thing this young woman ever wanted was to belong somewhere but she is persuaded that she can only find a belonging in her birth family and thus has difficulty to accept that they’re never coming back. And she will get a belonging but not the way she expects because the belonging/family she seeks is not behind her/in her past (parents, birth family) but ahead/in her future (lover, future family). You rarely become part of a future family if you don’t find someone who makes you part of that family, in other words a partner. And we know thanks to Maz that someone who is not part of her birth family could still come back. Given the way Disney/LF hints at this strange connection and relationship between the Rey and Kylo Ren - only descendant of the Skywalkers - it would make sense that Rey finds in the Skywalkers her future family. However, Rian said that there is romantic drama in TLJ, which means obstacles preventing a romance from happening. If Rey learns in TLJ the reasons why her parents never came back, she will have lose her belonging behind forever. And if Ben suffers a tragic fate in TLJ, she will have lose her belonging ahead. There wouldn’t be more romantically dramatic than this. If Rey loses her belonging, then it also means that this young woman loses the chance to have a family. And since Rey and Kylo’s relatinship is the centerpiece of the ST, it makes sense that the major conflict and/or stake raised by the shocking outcome of TLJ would be about them.

4) The Balance of the Force and the eternal war between the Dark Side and the Light Side...

Since Kylo and Rey are at the center of the ST, they are also at the center of the Balance in the Force in order to end the war between the DS and the LS and two sides of the conflict. Sure, Rey could try to do it alone but Rian Johnson insisted that these two are almost dual protagonists. There is no mistake in promoting them together and mirroring each other. They are equally important for the balance to the Force. And if there is one person who has no interest in having Kylo and Rey together, it is Snoke. These two powerful Force User represent a real threat for his huge agenda. If Kylo and Rey end up together as allies and/or lovers, there is no romantic drama and I might add that it already means more or less game over for Snoke. Giving Kylo Ren a tragic fate would compromise the possibility of bringing Balance in the Force and an end to the war between the Dark Side and the Light Side.

5) The heavy debates among the Star Wars fandom...

Kylo Ren is at the center of heavy debates among the SW fandom: redemption/ anti-redemption; Reylo/Anti-Reylos, etc...It is perfectly normal that a lot of people despise Kylo Ren for his actions and especially for the patricide. For some people, there is even hate toward this character to a point that one consider he shall die and/or suffering a tragic fate by the end of the ST.

If I would be Rian, I would give them what they want/expect earlier than they think and in the most unexpected way

Kylo haters: : Holly shit, Rian! You didn’t dare...

Reylos: My ship...

GA:

Although Luke turning to the DS or Rey turning to the DS would surely shock the audience, it wouldn’t bring much. Most of the audience already like these characters and would them back in any case. No way that Luke would die unredeemed so he would be back in the end but it would be too reminiscent of Vader’s. As for Rey, she is the heroine so there would be no way that the audience wouldn’t anticipate her redemption. Kylo on the other hand is a very unpredictable character who raise heavy debates within the fandom. Giving him some tragic fate would allow to keep the ultimate outcome of the ST uncertain for everyone.

#star wars #the last jedi #rey #kylo ren #Luke Skywalker #snoke #Disney

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marybeatriceofmodena · 8 years ago

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/ slams fist on the table/ TELL ME ABOUT YOUR PREDICTIONS FOR HOW REYLO IS GONNA GO DOWN

Aw, thank you for that question! *cracks knuckles*

AND JEEZ I WROTE A FUCKING NOVEL ROFL

To be honest, I have trouble separating my general TLJ speculation from my Reylo speculation, but I think that’s mainly because I think Rey and Kylo are going to spend a lot of time together in the next film.

Basically, I’m pretty sure Rey and Luke won’t get along very well. I even think Luke might downright refuse to train her. It doesn’t help that we got pretty solid evidence that Rey is not exactly good Jedi material. It’ll depend on what kind of Jedi Luke is, but again, Rey is anything but all calm and the “no attachments” kind of person. (Like, not gonna lie, I read the Ahsoka novel lately, and one thing that struck me was how rigid the “no attachments” rule was, and how Ahsoka suffered from it even if she didn’t admit it out loud. All I could think was: “Nope. Rey is not a Jedi, unless she undergoes some serious character change. And that wouldn’t be positive character change AT ALL.)

I think Luke’s possible refusal to train Rey might also come from the fact she’s a lot more like Ben/Kylo than she (and the audience) believe. It’s not going to help that I’m pretty sure Rey is going to be an eager puppy around Luke, at least at the beginning. Remember that part where she bypasses the compressor and looks all happy about it, and Han doesn’t give her the credit she thinks she deserves and gets all crestfallen? I mean, she clearly already saw him as a father figure at that moment (even if she knew Han for, like, ten minutes), and she was pretty desperate for his approval. I’m ready to bet she’s going to go after Luke as a replacement father figure, which is not the healthiest thing to do, but at same time, considering Rey’s background, it’s not surprising (and it makes her situation pretty tragic, come to think of it). Luke pushing her away is REALLY going to hurt, methinks.

Rey will probably learn something about Kylo’s backstory at some point, that will make him more sympathetic to her eyes. I don’t know how. It could be a vision or something, but we have to keep in mind that MSW rumors had it that just before Kylo shows up on Ahch-To, Luke wants Rey to kill Kylo and she doesn’t want to. Make of that what you will, but I think it would take something BIG for Rey to refuse to end Kylo’s life, because she ain’t a sweet little peach. I think it might have something to do with Kylo/Ben’s backstory with Luke. I mean, I’m pretty sure TLJ will be the answer to whatever question we might have had on the current Skywalker family drama.

I think Kylo is going to come on Ahch-To probably at the end of the first act or in the middle of the film, max. Otherwise, if he comes at the climax like (fake) rumors seem to claim, Rey is going to spend the entire film stuck with Luke on a desert island, and she’s supposed to be the heroine. Booooring. (Plus, Adam Driver spent a lot of time filming in Ireland, so I don’t think Kylo is going to show up on Ahch-To just for one scene at the end.)

As for Kylo’s mental state when he shows up… I don’t know. I’m pretty sure the trailers are going to show him off as a Big Bad, but there are two scenarios: either Snoke managed to convince him to have his revenge on Rey, and he’ll come on Ahch-To with his stupid-ass Vader cape flappin’ in the wind, and he’ll start dueling Rey and realize he just can’t bring himself to harm her, and then Rey drops the bomb about whatever she knows about his past. That just renders him helpless. But the other scenario is that maybe Snoke’s convincing just didn’t work this time, because he’s having way too many doubts, and while he keeps on obeying the Supreme Leader, he goes straight to attacking Rey when he arrives on Ahch-To just to pull off a tough show in front of the Knights of Ren (because no, I have a feeling they ain’t Kylo’s buddies).

As for the rumors of Rey falling from a cliff into the water… I don’t know. It could happen (well it would just be a good excuse to see Dangerous Dreamboat without his shirt, and I wouldn’t be complaining, but hey.)

And sure, have Luke take down the KoR in the meantime. I admit they’d kind of be in the way (I mean, they’re probably just there to look cool. *eyeroll*).

From there… so we have Rey who knows thanks to backstory that things aren’t quite what they seem with Kylo, even if she still feels confused towards him at best, and Kylo is still all like “The Supreme Leader is wise” while on the inside he’s screaming “WHAT THE FUUUUUCK”, and then TEENAGE HORMONES KICK IN, AND FROM THAT MOMENT, AFTER DEALING WITH THE HELL THAT WAS HAN AND LEIA, LUKE SKYWALKER IS FUCKING DOOMED

Okay, no, for real. I’ll just point out one little thing: in TFA, Snoke and Hux seem to have no problem with the map getting destroyed or Ahch-To getting blown up. What’s important is that Luke must not reach Leia. Kylo… seems to have another purpose entirely. He *wants* the map, so I think there’s something on Ahch-To (which is home to the first Jedi Temple) which he wants. Not to mention that I’m pretty sure him falling to the DS and joining Snoke isn’t just for UNLIMITED POWAH. I also think that whatever treasure is on Ahch-To is hard to access. I mean, it doesn’t seem as if Luke managed to access it. So methinks it takes two to access the Jedi Temple. (starts humming “It Takes Two” from Into the Woods)

All right, considering Raiders of the Lost Ark is a big inspo for Rey and Kylo’s plot, according to Rian Johnson… I think we’re going to have Kylo coaxing Rey into giving him the headpiece for the staff of Ra helping him access whatever’s in the temple. Luke… will not be pleased. But I think at that point, Rey will have had more than her share of Luke and will side with Kylo.

I MEAN WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU PUT AN 30-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN IMPERIAL ARCHIVES NERD AND A CUTE SCAVENGER ON A DESERT ISLAND CONTAINING AN OLD JEDI TEMPLE, C’MON RIAN

Gimme some fun Jedi Temple exploring action. And Kylo attempting to impress Rey with his AMAZING knowledge. And Hanleia levels of bantering.

I think it would be a good opportunity for the movie to become more introspective without slowing down the action too much. Rey has issues, and so does Kylo, and I think it’d be a good moment for them to realize that they’re not so different, and that families aren’t the sugar-coated vision Rey used to have of them.

And then… let’s say the FO arrives on Ahch-To because Snoke realizes Kylo is planning to elope with Rey slipping out of his control. I JUST WANT A SCENE LIKE THIS M’KAY.

youtube

Basically, just replace Indy with Kylo, Marion with Rey, and Belloq with Hux (?).

Then… I could see the movie’s climax taking place on Ahch-To, and Finn’s Resistance plot coming to meet Rey’s there. Basically, the Resistance could get worried of not getting any news from Luke and could head to Ahch-To and start panicking when they see the FO presence there, or maybe get info thanks to intel that the FO is heading straight to Luke. Meanwhile, Rey and Kylo would try to escape, and get caught.

Not gonna lie, I think Kylo is going to get the Skywalker Special (i.e. getting his hand chopped off). I also think Rey is going to tap in the Dark Side at the end of the movie, and I could see a scenario where she gets so scared and angry she unleashes a wave of pure DS power and kills every enemy around her (let’s say Hux too, because you know, it would permit Rey to tap in the DS and do a kill that could easily be forgiven in the eyes of the GA. Plus, that ginger space Nazi is deaaaad.) I could also see that happening when Finn is around? I think Rey and Finn will meet again in the third act of the film, but in not so good circumstances, and that would make that kind of situation work. Anywho, Rey will probably be devastated, and I think the movie is going to end with her and Kylo finally managing to escape and going rogue.

I think there will be a time jump between VIII and IX (because there seems to be something happening whenever you’re 23 in SW, and Rey is going to be 19 by the time of TLJ). I think travelling together will help both Rey and Kylo to see things from another perspective, and just… take a break from all this? If that makes any sense? (Okay, I’m kind of going quick because this post is way too long already, lol)

I also think Reylo will become two-sided at the very end of TLJ. Before that would be too rushed imo, and for it taking place in IX… I admit I don’t really see Colin Trevorrow pulling it off. Plus, if they spend some time on their own, it might help them find a bit more stability with themselves and all that jazz (even if I think it’ll just be the beginning of Rey’s problems…)

So yeah. Those are pretty much my predictions - or rather wishful thinking, lol. I’m pretty sure the ending is super not clear because I kind of rushed to finish this rant, but hopefully, it’ll give you a good idea. ;)

Send me a SW-related question.

#star wars #rey #kylo ren #reylo #rants and reviews #long post for ts #I'M SORRY #ENJOY MY WISHFUL THINKING #cobwebbing

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