#most of the sequel trilogy was stupid as fuck but then like. rey taking the name skywalker? yeah thats good shit

[killiakill]

no cuz literally star wars at its very heart is about FAMILY , the family youre born into but also the family you make yourself, and how that sometimes overlaps, and moreover the insane shit ppl will do FOR their family like. aurgh . so anyway its no wonder so many of the visions shorts are about siblings or a parent and their kid like. That's Star Wars Babey!

[yeahiwasintheshit]

I spent the last 6+ hours re-watching the star wars sequel trilogy, and I’m exhausted. Lol the main take away is the whole trilogy is a goddamn mess. It seems like nothing was planned out. I didn’t like force awakens when it came out , but I admit it was def better than I remember. Like the last half of the movie still sucks, but it was great to see the beginning with the introduction of rey and Finn and poe. They’re good characters and the actors were good too. fuckin disney really fucked up a real good opportunity to make a great trilogy, but all they came up with is this garbage.

So anyway force awakens was better than I remember, but the last jedi was way worse... well maybe the same hatred for it. I really hated the last jedi, the tone was just baffling. Right from the beginning the humor was so misplaced, and absolutely ruins the movie for me. It really is bad. The fucking casino planet garbage was so stupid and pointless. There on this mission and they stop the whole movie to save these horse things and rose give maybe the worse line in all of the movies, when she says ‘now it’s worth it’ when she lets one of the horse human face things go. Lol I just fuckin hate this movie. And they kill luke which still pisses me off lol

I also didn’t like rise of skywalker. There was just so much shit happening in it at once, the movie is so fast paced (derogatory) it never slows down and was not a fun experience because of it, clearly the script was just awful. But they were smart enough to keep the main 3 cast members together for most of the movie, and those 3 actors have good chemistry and made something, as much as they could, from the really dumb plot. And that scene with harrison Ford and Adam driver is genuinely good. One scene lol

So watching these 3 movies back to back in one night, and almost 5 years later, I’ve come to like the first half of force awakens the best. The entire last jedi I still actively hate. It’s just an awful movie. And rise of skywalker I didn’t like, but didn’t hate.

This was a waste of time lol

[noiselessbuck]

asking about the good version of the sequel trilogy that lives in your brain

HI YES

ok so my favorite sw movie is the force awakens because it caused me to have such a great idea for the rest of the series which never happened but shhhh it did

the main idea is that you can, by letting finnpoe exist, parallel a bunch of stuff to the original series but also more fun than that so we have:

- first off more time on reys home planet (i read the whole lil companion book about her chilling there) i'm not immune to Nausacaä coded characters

- poe has his tv canon backstory as a pilot instead of changing it to be racist

rey and finn things:

- finn and rey are like hinted at as oo are they gonna be together

- finn does actually get to say and fully use his force sensitive powers

- he and rey have like force-spidie sense on each other

- around the time when they are saving the hurt and angry sandworm thing is where finn's force sensitivity powers and shown and shows a lot of their force connection

- at a time after saving said sandworm thing finn and rey like either are egged on by someone or do think the other has a crush (possibly a weird singular kiss) and then! they both go um no thanks not romantic. but also- you're my force soulmate and my best friend. and then they're in a force-QPR thereafter

- after this poe is all like very quickly relieved and happy for them

rose things:

- listen listen rose and finn are thee ultimate "attempt at being straight before we both realize we are not" thing

- still have the most awkward kiss ever

- rose gets a cool gf (i dont know side characters names)

- both rose and finn are concerned about telling the other it's not gonna work out and then are relieved

- then they're chilling friends and she gets to be in the third movie doing cool stuff

finnpoe things:

- finn poe co-captains jacket scene is more romantic

- after a big scary fight they kiss

- i really want there to be parallels specifically to "a kiss for good luck" to hint reyfinn and then also smth similar to leia and han's endor scene with finnpoe of like what i thought you liked her? no dude im her soulmate, you're who im in love with

aro rey vs kylo stuff:

- more rey roasting kylo for having his shirt off and shit

- kylo being all like there's something special between us please join my facism 🥺 and rey going nope i have a force soulmate you're a force pain in the ass

- zero reylo kissing

- they can team up for the last part with the force sharing lightsabers thing but it would only show that rey has turned him (ps the final fight sucks ass and would be different but not solid ideas what it would be)

other things:

- rey would only ever be related to random trader civilians none of this granddaughter bullshit because power via lineages is the patriarchy fuck that we need Just some guy who is a girl representation

- the scene where rey fights evil!rey would one, semi mirror luke fighting spectral darth vader and two

- SHE WOULD MAKE THE FOLDING DOUBLE SABER

- like im sorry but you can reject the evil version of yourself and still take notes on saber construction

- leia would only almost die she's actually gonna die and also only have the death scene be whatever CGI stuff

- kylo would still kill han bc that shit was funny

- the cool girl who led a stormtrooper rebellion and rides space horses will NOT be related to lando because what the fuck. rey being lukes granddaughter is one thing but- 2/3 of the black character in this fucking Galaxy are related? fuck no. she would still be cool and get more scenes and maybe she can be rose's girlfriend

- leia has the force uses lightsabers more and her lightsaber should be pink specifically because when carrie fisher was asked what color it would be that's what she said

- kylo needs to be more stupid and more just anything that would stop people from thinking he's cool hot and edgy. ofc this is nigh impossible but just more things similar to the "kylo ren the middle schooler" twitter account

- more animals!! and more animal interactions like the ice foxes

- name the porgs something else🤦

- make all the bad guy ships more interesting looking instead of just- the same thing but larger, unLess that element is played up for comedic effect more

- the kid at the casino stables who gets a shot showing they can use the force is the black kid

that's everything i can think of right now yee ill rb with more if i think of it

[reviewsclown]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi 2017

I guess instead of making a starkiller 2, because it's poetry with the original prequel, they just got a really really big star destroyer to win every battle, called a dreadnought. also General Hux, brand new character, very orange hair he looks kind of gross, in a rare win for quips Poe Dameron epically owns Hux by pretending he can't hear him, I thought that was actually pretty funny. This first fight scene is very confusing because they introduce new bombers instead of Y-wings and they're both worse and uglier, also somehow they 'drop' the bombs down from the ship onto the target, but their in space? the bomb hold also just isn't seperate from the cockpit, the entire ship opens up to space, and the bombers don't even wear a space suit they're just exposed to open space! What the fuck! Also they replaced Bacta tanks with weird plastic suits that are full of water so you can like, save space and still move around and stuff, pretty lame decision. Anyways, depressed burnout Luke Skywalker is pretty cool, it makes sense he had his big revolution and then pretty immediately it fell, I'd want to give up because of that too, also when he's training Rey in the force there's some really good jokes there. also also, those students that left with Kylo Ren when he betrayed Luke for fun, presumably those are the 'knights of ren' that were mentioned once by snopes? The fact that luke would attack a child because they powerful in the force, thus creating Kylo Ren to enact the plot of the sequel trilogy, it's just so stupid man, why do this, you think he would idk, try to make him less evil instead of giving in to instinctual anger. Turns out there was actually a bigger star destroyer than the star dreadnought, and it's the real super weapon, and its special ability is to track though hyperdrive which wasn't possible before apparently? it's not really discussed, but obviously that's a huge threat, also Leia has the force now and this wasn't foreshadowed in any way at all, and she uses it to survive in space(!) and magically float back to the ship she got exploded out of (!!) it's such bullshit, everyone thinks she should be dead and they're right to do so.

Rose is a neat character, I don't think she's used well for anything at all, but her and Finn bonding and making a plan to save the day through janitor knowledge was pretty fun, wasn't expecting that kind of callback honestly. I guess they're doing some kind of heist movie now, and they need to find a code breaker on a casino planet because this is a heist movie now. Ok, an entirely heist movie star wars could be pretty good, but this isn't that and instead it's just dabbling in it for some reason, so it's kind of lame and stupid. I'm not sure what the deal with codebreaker is meant to be, obviously he does drugs and is competent, is he meant to be a 90s hacker type guy? They do a twist where the drug addict gives the necklace back to the girl, so maybe he's good actually? but then it turns out he betrays them so maybe the drug addict is evil actually? and also basically that entire plot line was super duper pointless and they went to the casino planet for nothing. The casino planet is obviously commentary on capitalism bad, but they make it so all the rich guys are arms dealers to evil people, not y'know, regular rich people that would visit a hedonism planet, they have slaves but they get left behind because these movie are firmly anti-'taking a stance on slavery', they released some animals and destroyed some cars and shit, all extremely recoverable losses, and act like they really owned the rich, stuck it to them in some meaningful way. Incredibly lukewarm take. Kylo betraying Snoke by doing 2 things at once so he misreads the action was pretty cool, not the most deserved of betrayals I feel like they could've built it up better, but at least they did it in a cool way. Also why do all the red guards have special unique weapons, they're all different presumably because they're like, minibosses. hyperlight famously doesn't go through things in physical space, it's a step above or below space that they travel through, it makes no sense it'd cut through snopes personal ship. All that being said, it did look pretty awesome. Phasma's death was lame and pathetic, she should've been a better character. Rose's death was also lame as hell nice job sacrificing yourself to stop someone else from sacrificing themself so that nothing is achieved, and also I guess there was meant to be romance between her and Finn? that's stupid too

Really impressive CGI in this movie it must be said, if it has anything going for it it's that. Apparently a lot of the concerns about stupid decisions for in-universe tech come from the fact that they got an entirely new writer for this movie, who doesn't care about star wars at all. But there's still good looking star wars robots, and there's the red salt planet which is famously really awesome graphically. Good music too but it's a bit hard to mess up star wars music, it's not your average generic movie score, it's generic star wars score.

Final Review: Yeah that was an ok movie, kinda bad but it was ok, its watchable, if you want to watch it and liked the first one.

[muttman]

Hard to swallow pills (for tumblr):

A species that lives entirely underground would have little reason to have melanin, especially if they live primarily around a climate similar to England and Europe in general, especially because lighter skin allows for more vitamins to be obtained when there is less sun normally, this is why non-europeans and non-east asians are darker, the sun is more ínstense and so there’s need for protection and less need to take in more vitamins.

Any added character to Tolkien’s canon does by definition break canon, because the story then has to be changed to accommodate them. Any Beardless dwarf or short haired elf also applies, because of the pre-established culture of each race, and so the culture has to be augmented from what was written by Tolkien to accommodate.

Elves as Tolkien wrote them had long flowing hair because they saw that as beautiful, and the Dwarves never shaved. In addition to the melanin thing, the modern elves make no sense.

Middle Earth was inspired by European mythology, and so has European characters. It features non-europeans from far off lands, like the Harad of the south and the Easterlings of the East, but overall it makes sense as to why the characters are light skinned (I say this as a Mestizo). You shouldn’t cast Christian Bale to play Malcom X, nor Awkwafina to play Robert the Bruce. Same as you’d cast dark, straight haired mestizo (or a fully indigenous Nahuatl speaker if you’re lucky) to play an Aztec or a Mayan.

Grogu is a cutsy piece of bait to get you to watch mediocre shows and distract from the shit sequel trilogy. Star Wars is now just colorful garbage and Din Djarin is (and always has been) a different breed of Gary Stu than Rey, but still such none the less, a plank of wood with all of the “super kewl” items that people know, like Yoda’s species (formerly tridactyls), and the darksaber.

Star Wars and Star Trek, and soon Middle Earth, are being lost to the Normies, and the only way to preserve the original fandom is to make sure you keep an iron grip on your original copies of the series and of Tolkien’s work, to prevent the Heirs from allowing editing.

The people here clap for the most basic shit imaginable, like Din Djarin holding his hands up from a droid about to shoot him. Despite the fact that his opinion on droids has been aboit as stable as a wet noodle, and this isn’t even his show.

Tumblr has not improved as much as you’d think since the exodus, but instead simply infected other sites with its exodus.

Modern Writing, relies now so heavily on the fans making the character traits for the writers, that characters like Din Djarin have exploded in popularity, despite being planks of wood.

Now, I’m leaving this stupid site to learn to write properly, so I can rebuild where Disney and others destroyed, and I’ll laugh as their properties continue to plummit and the Normies slowly fade, to find a new nieche to make into a trend, only to find its fandom wiser, and gatekeeping the fuck out of it, and see peace be restored.

[dalekofchaos]

The erasure of R2-D2 and C-3PO. Disney’s worst failure

R2-D2 and C-3PO make up the core of the Star Wars Saga. They are the first characters on screen; we are quite literally introduced to the universe from their perspective. They are the only characters who survive all the way through the Saga, from Episode I-VI. In Episodes I-VI, it was a deliberate choice for R2 to save the lives of the main characters at least once per episode (he fixes the ship’s shields in I, stops Padme from being boiled in II, helps Anakin and Obi Wan escape the battle droids in III, shuts down the trash compactor in IV, fixes the hyperdrive in V and gives Luke his saber in VI). C-3PO partly helps Luke along his journey by telling his exploits with the Rebels, C-3PO while annoying helped our heroes get out of tight situations and C-3PO is the only reason why the Ewoks helped the Rebels destroy the Death Star II’s generator.

It cannot be overstated how important these two characters are. In fact, a critic even argued that the Star Wars Saga was about the two droids being sent to different masters, and being the observers to all the mistakes and follies they make.

So just WHY has Disney completely ignored them? R2 no longer has his “save the day” moments; that’s literally just reserved for BB-8. When does R2 directly save anyone in the Sequels? And C-3PO, the translator, has been kicked out because Rey doesn’t need a translator because she’s already fluent in however many forms of communication the plot demands. Oh, and we don’t need R2, because Rey can fix anything she wants. If the purposes of 3PO and R2 can be replaced by an annoying Volleyball and a demigod, then why did you even bother to bring back C-3PO and R2-D2?

Even Anthony Daniels was baffled by the treatment of C-3PO "In these new movies, I have felt like a table decoration. And that is difficult because I recognize this character is worth so much more. But I understand it is a whole film, not a feature about C-3PO. That is just my personal disappointment. I get paid whether or not he does anything but it would be nice for him to have a purpose."

In TFA, C-3PO has a red arm? Why? Find out in a comic. In TLJ he does pretty much nothing and has one small moment with Luke that Mark and Anthony had to adlib because Rian Johnson couldn’t understand why these two would have one final moment. So in Rise Of Skywalker. C-3PO says “Let me take one last look, at my best friends.” Best friends? You barely knew Rey, Finn and Poe. They’ve been treating you like a nuisance all movie. Then we get a stupid “GOTCHA” gag by giving us another fucking fakeout death.

It would’ve made much more sense if we saw 3PO’s eyes imagine Han, Luke, Leia, Padme and Anakin. Oh and guess what would’ve been better? “R2, please. Let me do this. But first let me take one last look, at my best friend.” 3PO saying this to R2 would’ve made much more sense. Oh and no fake out death because that was bullshit. C-3PO gives his life to translate the Sith dagger(yes it’s as stupid as it sounds)

R2-D2 is the most screwed over character in the entire Sequel Trilogy. He spent all of TFA in low power mode either waiting for or trying to find Luke, finally does... and then he swears at him, plays one message to try and guilt him and then gives up entirely. Seriously, R2 only shows up in that one scene in the entire movie, the droid that was the most loyal little thing in the galaxy leaves the fate of his best friend and master to some random girl he knows nothing about. That's not R2. R2 would have followed Luke around and tried to save Luke instead of just sitting on the Falcon the entire time. I just find it IMPLAUSIBLE that R2-D2 would ever leave Luke. Then in TROS, R2 spends 95% of the movie being cut out. Why is R2 left out on the final adventure? R2 does not sit around, R2 goes where the action is. The treatment of R2-D2 in the sequels, ESPECIALLY AFTER KENNY BAKER’S PASSING IS INFURIATING!

Once again, let’s look at R2′s importance in the first 6 movies. George Lucas said the reason why R2 D2 has a major role in all six films is because the entire story, and therefore the canon, is actually being told BY R2-D2. He even went as far as making sure R2 saves the lives of the main cast once per film (1-Repairs the Naboo Ship and allows everyone to escape the blockade 2-Picks up Obi Wan’s distress signal AND saves Padme from lava 3-Overrides the Elevator lockdown and distracts Grevious 4-Shuts down the garbage masher 5-Fixes the hyperdrive allowing the cast to escape Vader 6-Gives Luke his lightsaber)

In the Sequels R2 never saves anyone’s life, completely breaking one of the core traditions of Star Wars. Worse, in TFA, he’s Shut down completely meaning he cannot possibly record what’s going on, hence, the entire film, and by extension the Sequel trilogy, is no longer a part of R2’s story.

Duel Of Fates actually used R2-D2.  During the heat of battle, R2-D2 would have taken a fatal blast, destroying the droid's circuits and rendering it little more than an empty shell. As Chewbacca carried R2 on his back, similar to how he once carried 3PO all those years before, R2's best friend would have been inconsolable. As a droid C-3PO has very rarely shown much emotion other than worry and fear for his own life. Seeing him mourn the death of his best friend would have made this one of the toughest death scenes to take in the entire history of Star Wars. C-3PO consoles a damaged R2-D2 as a Star Destroyers crashes to the ground in the background. C-3PO consoles a damaged R2-D2 as a Star Destroyers crashes to the ground in the background.

The fact they did absolutely nothing with R2-D2 and just fakeout deathed C-3PO in the final movie is insulting. The fact that they completely erased the importance of the storytellers of Star Wars is where the Sequels truly failed. This, I think, is the most glaring and obvious evidence of Disney’s lack of understanding of Star Wars. Over the years many, many things had changed in the Saga but the one constant was R2 and 3PO. And now they’re being unceremonious kicked to the curb.

[fontofmercy-archived2]

TROS spat in the face of every single abused child who was looking to this fairytale for hope. The sequel trilogy wasn’t about a farm boy looking for adventure or even an abused child falling to villainy, it was about three abused children from the different class systems all rising out of trauma and dysfunction. This was our fairytale, our story, and JJ Abrams perverted it into abuse apologist propaganda in a pathetically desperate attempt to appease the most hateful groups of fans who never understood or appreciated the story to begin with (which is why the story had to be butchered in order to appease them).

1.) Rey

Rey’s parents selling her for profit into slavery was portrayed as a good, loving thing. Child trafficking was literally portrayed as excusable, and even loving, in this children’s film. Just let that sink in for a second.

What is the message there? If your parents did something horrible that caused you years of trauma and torment, you should just not lose faith in them because they may have had a good reason (even if you have no evidence of that). Maybe a space wizard who has been dead for decades forced them to traffic you. This scene makes me want to vomit. This is how a children’s fairytale portrayed parents who sell their children into trafficking:

There is no excuse for this. Rey’s parentage was solved. Her identity crisis was over. This wasn’t needed except to force this abuse apologist message. Oh, and of course to feed the sexist fanboys a bit of eugenics to make them stop whining about how a woman could possibly be important and powerful.

TLJ was about Rey discovering her identity and letting go of her unhealthy, irrational dependency on parents who she never knew, who sold her to an abuser and left her to half-starve alone in a desert. TROS decided to give her a new identity crisis out of literally nowhere just so they could erase all that “You are not your parents, even if your parents don’t love you and/or aren’t special, you are still special and still deserving of love. You can find belonging ahead of you.” stuff with dynastic “Actually, your blood family does entirely define your identity and you should always assume they’re right even when all evidence points otherwise, just ignore your own trauma and blame it on a dead space wizard.”

The whole Rey Palpatine thing left a very bad taste in my mouth. Not just because it’s fucking stupid and something Reddit would write, but because Rey was horrible in TROS. She acted like she was possessed by Palpatine, she stabbed Ben (who she cares for and always had compassion for) to kill while he was distracted. She suddenly acted like she didn’t care about anyone around her. She just overall acted unrecognizable from the warm, loving, empathetic woman we saw in TFA and TLJ. The message here is clearly that because she has this “bad blood”, Rey can’t have an identity for herself. The only thing that saves her is taking on the identity of the good guys, she never finds her own. All the traits she’s had up until now don’t matter, who she actually is doesn’t matter. All that matters is what man’s blood runs through her veins. All Rey is is someone’s granddaughter, because if she wasn’t, then she’d really be nobody.

And thus, JJ Abrams decided that “Anyone can be special, even nobodies. Your worth is not defined by your class or your background.” was a stupid message and instead it should be pure eugenic “You’re only special if you have important people blood/name. Your identity is entirely your (male) family, not your own. No silly woman could have power of her own!”

Rey taking on the name of Skywalker is an utterly shallow attempt to fix the fact that they took every bit of Rey’s real identity from her, took half her soul (Ben is her dyad, two that are one), and then left her alone on a desert planet as if to say that her “true self” is the abused child she once was and that she can’t actually escape that. The moral of this fairytale was “You don’t need friends or love, as long as you have a glow stick (material possessions) and a super duper special name that makes you important (which you weren’t before, you were nobody).”

Not to mention that Rey basically named herself after Luke, no one else she knew actually used that name. And Luke didn’t do anything to deserve that, he rejected her at every single opportunity and only did the bare minimum to help her after being berated into it. Han was her surrogate father and the first person to offer her a life outside of Jakku. Leia was her loving mentor and pseudo-mother. Ben was the love of her life who has always been there for her when she needed someone to confide it, someone to see her true self and tell her she wasn’t alone. Luke was nothing but some cranky old guy who made her feel awful about herself and never accepted her (not to mention telling her she was inherently dangerous and also trying to murder her soulmate when he was a child which the real Rey was furious about).

2.) Finn

Finn’s character has not been given much in terms of development. For the most part, he’s been reduced to “Rey’s friend” and then “Finn’s friend”, with a little moment in there where he got to be with Rose and have his own identity but TROS of course decided to reward racist bullies and cut out Rose instead of giving the rest of the fans a satisfying story.

In TROS though, the one thing that Finn actually did that was heroic by himself, his character defining moment of turning from The First Order, was credited to the force and described like it wasn’t a choice at all. Which brings up a lot of questions and, as Han would say, “That’s not how the force works!”. It was so entirely unneeded to take that from Finn, but they gave up all of Rose’s potential screentime to do it.

There’s also the moment when Poe, our alleged hero, so hilariously (i.e callously) compares himself being a criminal to Rey being a scavenger and Finn being a stormtrooper. Completely ignoring the fact that they had no choice in that, as if their trauma doesn’t matter at all. It’s a small moment, but it was very insensitive and highlights how much the writers Did Not Care or even understand their main characters’ experiences.

3.) Ben

I don’t even know where to start with Ben Solo. His ending was the one that broke me as a person, I had so many hysterical sobbing fits over it that my loved ones were actually getting tired of it and it genuinely put me in a really bad place with my depression that I’m only just not getting out of.

Ben Solo’s story in TFA and TLJ was abuse victim’s epic, it was the story of a boy who was tortured and groomed from the time he was in his mother’s womb. A man who never knew a life without abuse. Ben Solo was described as a pure beam of light in his mother’s womb who was ensnared and tainted by a predatory force bigger and stronger than himself that he could not escape.

The feeling of being tainted and corrupted is common in abuse victims, and the fact that TROS told every single abused child out there “Yes, you really are tainted and corrupted. You do deserve to die before experiencing more than a moment of happiness and safety.” is something that I’ve yet to get over. It still infuriates me, it still breaks my heart. Ben’s entire arc up until this point has been about how he is still worthy of love.

And no, this isn’t me woobifying; it’s in the text of the films and the canon novels that Ben worked for his redemption, that he earned it. Ben fought Snoke from the time he was a child, but Ben was only a child and Snoke was too powerful, too relentless in his cruelty for him to withstand. The one and only person in the entire galaxy who had the training and the knowledge to protect Ben was his uncle, who chose to try to murder him in his sleep instead of protecting him. Ben was left with nowhere to turn except to his abuser. And even then, we see him struggle every single day to try and force himself to be this evil person that he never was. Ben was light itself who was convinced he was darkness through abuse and manipulation.

Then, when Ben found the first person who he could feel and connect with through the force, even though Snoke and Luke had abused and betrayed him - Ben still took the chance to reach out to Rey and be vulnerable with her. While interrogating an enemy, he took off his mask and revealed himself (something we only see him to for his father and when Snoke forces him to maliciously). In the middle of a war, under the thumb of the monster who has tortured him since forever, Ben was able hold Rey’s hand and tell her she wasn’t alone. He was still able to be kind. And because of that kindness, that connection, Ben found the courage to finally destroy his abuser and free himself.

Ben freed himself, and he did it out of compassion for and a need to protect Rey, not out of wrath or vengeance. If Ben were truly a creature of wrath, he would have killed Snoke before, but it was only when he had to see and hear and feel his soulmate be tortured by his own abuser that he found that courage. And yes, he did take Snoke’s place at first because that was the only way he knew how to protect himself. In his experience, people without power get hurt and that’s it. But even then, Ben was able to muster yet more strength to shed the armor that was Kylo Ren and stand with Rey unarmored against the very thing that has abused and tortured him since before he was born.

That took so much bravery and love and selflessness for Ben to stand there as himself, ready to fight his abuse and trauma head-on as Ben Solo. For him to admit he was hurt for the first time in the series. For him to crawl up a cliff with a badly broken leg out of love. For him to willingly give his very life force out of pure love. All of these things are incredible for Ben to have been able to do after all he had been through, these are more than deserving of reward. But TROS punished Ben for doing everything right, they proved that abusers always win in the end. Ben was going to survive until the last few edits. Everything we see was literally leading up to him surviving. This was Ben’s redemption, this was supposed to be him fighting for his new beginning and taking his first steps into the happiness and safety he earned, and should have had as a child, not a pointless struggle before succumbing to death:

But TROS told us, told traumatized and neurodivergent children who saw themselves in Ben, that it wasn’t good enough. That love isn’t good enough. That doing the right thing deserves to be punished. That children tainted by violence and abuse and darkness don’t deserve love and healing even when they earn redemption, even when they do everything in their power to do the right thing and be brave. The hopelessness of that is what broke me as a person. That is not what Star Wars is about. Star Wars is about redemption and love and hope; TROS was about cruelty covered up with a thin sheet of materialism and confused, poor storytelling.

[dragonfire2lm]

Started Watching the Star Wars Sequel/Disney Movies...

I had to take a break after Episode 8...

When I got into Star Wars, I started with The Prequel Trilogy. Hell, I spent every Anakin/Padme scene in Episode 2 riffing on it with the boyfriend... But overall, I liked the Prequels.

They are nothing compared to dumpster fire that is Episodes 7 and 8... Props to the actors for trying their best but the writing, the entire premise of these films is terrible, completely unnecessary and it makes no sense.

The First Order shouldn’t be as big as it is, a splinter group at best, not some giant organization and you’d think that there would be systems put into place to dissolve the Empire, disband the storm troopers, and put an end to anything Palpatine had a hand in after his death, to restore peace to the galaxy but no, it has to go from a potential new Golden Age to a Crapsack World in what, twenty-thirty years?

How?

And oh my God, what did they do to Luke? They turned one of the most wholesome characters in media into- I don’t even know what!

I spent most of Episode 8 going “This is stupid”, “That’s not how the force works”, “Luke, you redeemed Vader, you could’ve saved the kid, the fuck are you doing?”, and “What are you doing? No. Stop”

I also spent a fair amount of time just imagining all of this pissing off Anakin Skywalker to the point his force ghost returns as Vader to knock some sense into everyone, alongside any alternative ways this train wreck could’ve been better.

If Luke had to fuck off to the middle of nowhere, maybe it was for important Jedi stuff, to commune with the Jedi of old to figure out how to restore the balance, and he does so in Obi-wan’s/Ben’s old hut on Tatooine, or something.

I had to force myself to keep watching when I was halfway through Episode 8, and I’m forcing myself to take a break now because otherwise I would be forcing myself to watch Episode 9. 

Also, my nicknames for the two of the characters, and yes, I called them that during the entire time I was watching.

Rey: Mary Sue

Kylo Ren: Discount Vader

The set pieces were cool to see, but I, personally, watch these movies for the story, the lore, to immerse myself in this fictional universe because it has so much potential...

Mary Sue, without training, without showing any sign she’s a force sensitive, suddenly awakens to Force powers, Jedi Mind Tricks, and somehow knows how to use a Lightsaber. Ex-fucking-scuse me but last time I checked, that’s not how The Force works.

And why did Discount Vader turn to the dark side to begin with? Luke, you were the Chosen One, You turned one of the most heinous villains back towards the light, there is no way in sith hell that Luke Skywalker would have tried to kill someone because they were drawn to the dark side. Character Assassination at work.

And speaking of, the entire Original Trilogy is a moot point, it’s like these newer movies go out of their way to nostalgia bait and then piss on the previous movies just so they can promote their shiny new OC’s!

I don’t know if I can sit through another movie with all that bullshit, I’m having a bit of trouble finding the words to express my sheer disappointment and spite towards these movies...

This was just me venting, it’s fine if you do like these movies and the characters, but I don’t, I really, really don’t, and want to just pretend they don’t exist...

[ilonga]

rise of skywalker and sequels salt time, y’all

things I’m salty about in the rise of skywalker and the star wars sequels, in no particular order:

- Finn was sidelined 

- FINN WAS SIDELINED

- he was such an interesting character with so much potential (a stormtrooper who deserted!! pretty sure that was the first time we’d ever seen that!!), and it was all ignored and he was turned into background noise for what?? kylo ren??

- seriously! after TFA, the movies should have explored his backstroy! we should have seen his stormtrooper past affect him!! maybe a stormtrooper revolution!! he should have had a CHARACTER ARC!

- also his force-sensitivity being turned into a joke and comic relief was frankly insulting

- they could have done so many things with that side of the character (even though it was kind of out of nowhere)! parallels between finn and rey, finn questioning his identity, the whole a former stormptrooper being force sensitive thing should have been explored!

- Poe was sidelined

- Poe was a spice runner for no reason?? 1) isn’t that a rude stereotype, and 2) Poe is not Han Solo 2.0!! he was his own, different character!

- Finn/Poe didn’t happen

- gonna be salty about that forever, though I guess I saw it coming :( (it’s disney, what did I expect?)

- but they gave Poe a straight love interest that we’d never heard of before this movie and who he had like two lines of dialogue with just to rub it in?? like, really?

- they completely forgot Rose existed

- like, listen, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the finnrose kiss either, but you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen and hope everyone forgets about it

- and sure, rose’s introduction and character in TLJ was a bit clumsy

- BUT YOU CAN’T JUST IGNORE HER AND PRETEND SHE DIDN’T HAPPEN

- she had a lot of potential as a character, and interesting backstory, a practical pragmatic personality, and a lot of ways she could play off the other characters

- TROS could have been where we saw Rose grow as a character and really shine

- instead, she was forgotten

- ugh

- REY PALPATINE WAS THE DUMBEST FRICKING THING OKAY--

- like, first of all, palpatine coming back for some reason somehow was the most ridiculous direction this movie could have gone and didn’t work, at all

- their enemy for the first TWO MOVIES was the First Order and Kylo Ren

- they had a huge moment in TLJ where the Resistance is steadily being destroyed and they won’t last long against the First Order

- now they’re supposed to take on the First Order and a now-supposedly-immortal emperor palpatine who has a collection of unmanned star destroyers he can control for some reason??

- both of them at once? the resistance is barely alive as is, now you’re adding an OP extra army + sith lord to the mix?

- I mean, this is ridiculous. Palpatine’s dead. Anakin’s big sacrifice in return of the jedi was KILLING palpatine. now he’s back, and the resistance somehow realises he’s back and decides he’s enemy #1 now?

- how did the resistance find out a dead sith lord came back to life on a remote planet anyways?

- and WHAT ABOUT, YOU KNOW, THE FIRST ORDER? AND KYLO REN?

- Kylo Ren, who they finally decided was going to be the main villain in TLJ (even with that stupid “rey trying to redeem the mass murderer” plot going on in the background), and now they don’t have the guts to commit to making him evil (which he was for the LAST TWO MOVIES AND THE MAJORITY OF TROS)

- so, since they weren’t committed enough to make Kylo a villain like he actually was and didn’t have the groundwork for a redemption, they just decided to ignore the fact that he was evil and hope it would go away

- like, are we going to forget that he literally MURDERED HIS DAD, HAN SOLO

- or that he and his first order destroyed a whole SYSTEM OF PLANETS? filled with billions of innocent people?

- he personally tortured Poe, he personally tortured Rey, and he was complicit in a system that kidnapped Finn, took him from his family, and brainwashed him

- not to mention that one of the opening scenes of TROS was him literally massacring people

- but no!! it’s all fine now, bc he looked at his dad’s ghost a little sadly and got a new lightsaber color

- like, no. he isn’t “redeemed” because he’s decided he has the hots for rey. heck, that makes it even worse. he’s been trying to manipulate her for all three movies, he’s gaslighted her, he’s threatened her, he’s hurt the people she cares about. NONE OF THAT IS OKAY. and it’s even less okay that all of his evil deeds can be written off because rey’s “”love”” for him “healed” him or whatever the fuck they want us to think

- and why would they have Rey HEAL him? after SHE stabbed him? in what universe does that make sense?? even if rey didn’t defeat him fairly bc he was distracted or whatever, this is still the supreme leader of the army rey and the rebels are trying to defeat. like, rey, are you a part of the resistance or not? it doesn’t matter if he was “nicer” to you than the rest of the rebels. He’s still your ENEMY. Your “”empathy”” here helps no one, least of all yourself. Kylo Ren dead would have been a massive victory for the resistance--maybe they’d even have had a chance against the first order then! you know, the first order? the enemy you were fighting for the last two movies? 

- is this the message you want to be sending to young girls in the audience? that it’s ok if their partner hurts them, hurts other people, is a bad person in general, because their love can “”heal”” him? and that eventually, he’ll turn good if you just try hard enough?

- this is how people wind up in abusive relationships!! that shit is NOT okay

- and the kiss is ridiculous for the same reasons. you don’t owe kylo ren anything, rey. Not in the least for “rescuing” from a situation that was pretty much created bc of him. He’s the one who teamed up with palpatine at the beginning of the movie, remember?

- sometimes I feel like this movie forgot that kylo ren is, you know, a bad person, which the other two movies spent their entire runtime showing us

- like darth vader’s sacrifice was one thing. first of all, it was for his son, his child, and secondly, vader was very much under the power of the emperor and debatably had the mindset of a slave

- kylo ren, on the other hand, was completely under his own power. HE was making the choices, and calling the shots. HE murdered Snoke. And he died for a girl he was manipulating and gaslighting constantly and that he didn’t have much of a connection to other than “the force”

- like, darth vader’s “”redemption”” definitely wasn’t perfect either. you can argue that him killing the emperor and sacrificing him self to save his son didn’t negate any of his actions or him being a bad person. but it was definitely more meaningful and better handled.

- and let’s talk about rey

- I will forever be bitter that rey didn’t get a meaningful character arc and character growth

- which is so disappointing because she was SUCH an interesting (& mysterious) character with so much potential in TFA

- I feel like, in making her palpatine, which was pretty out of nowhere and contrary to the last jedi, they were so busy trying to fit her heritage into the movie in a way that sort of made sense that they forgot to make the movie about her growing as a character and person

- couldn’t they at least have given her her own lightsaber?

- I mean, her being a palpatine is already ridiculous because since when does palpatine have a son? (clone, whatever) And since when did that son have some sort of epic struggle where he refuses to join palpatine and runs away? and when did that son find someone he fell in love with, and have a daughter? and then subsequently abandon her, a seven-ish year old, on a dangerous desert planet? (I mean, wasn’t palpatine dead by then anyways?)

- it just doesn’t fit with the already established star wars universe. we already know palpatine’s story (well, not the beginning of it, but enough). It was movies 1-6, clone wars, and rebels. if he had had a son that had a luke-esque struggle against the darkside, it would have shown up.

- it just doesn’t fit

- but anyways, back to rey

- I guess they were trying to give her some luke-style struggle where she struggles with her heritage and a pull to the darkside that she has to ultimately triumph over? but it doesn’t work

- one, because she never HAS any struggle with the dark side. shooting lightning out of your fingers out of nowhere doesn’t count (and wasn’t that a ridiculous scene. it was more comical than anything else, which is definitely not what they were going for)

- a struggle with the darkside is about being tempted to give into anger, fear, and hatred, and struggling not to do the wrong things and turn evil. In luke’s story, we SAW that. we also saw luke’s horror and eventual acceptance of his heritage, which we never really saw with rey. It was just like, “okay, guess I’m a palpatine?” and it wasn’t nearly as impactful bc palpatine had been dead for the past thirty-ish years. as a contrast, vader was a living and very present villain who the heroes had to contend with, and it was personal for most of them.

- so I guess they tried to make that her character arc, but it didn’t work. so we were left with a stale character who didn’t really have any meaningful victories or losses.

- is she really a “”mary sue”” like everyone’s claiming if they never really made the story about her?

- I think that was the biggest thing that was so unsatisfying about the sequels

- she was hyped up to be the first real mainstream female jedi protagonist (obviously clone wars got there first, but movies are definitely more mainstream than a show, sorry cw :( ), but she never really got a journey, struggles, or real triumphs. which is such a shame because she was this really empowering character in TFA that I was so excited to see more! but her trilogy-wide character arc just wasn’t satsifying

- I wanted to see her really struggle, and rise above her struggles! I wanted her to have meaningful triumphs!

- also I don’t think she ever got injured either, which is definitely a deviation from the star wars trilogy pattern. that’s kinda strange. (luke lost his hand & got electrocuted, han got frozen in carbonite, leia got tortured & shot, anakin got, well, a LOT of injuries, but even before becoming darth vader w/ the foregone conclusion, he had his arm cut off, padme was pretty heavily injured on genosis, and obi-wan was injured in the fight against dooku)

- yup

- also the sith wayfinder was kinda dumb, and I never felt like there were real stakes in TROS

- and let’s address the rey skywalker thing: ok, fine, I get what they were trying to say, kind of

- and I’m not foaming at the mouth about it like some people are. I’m fairly indifferent

- but it would have been a lot more meaningful if rey had had like, a really close, deep relationship with Leia and Luke, so she could say that she and they considered her a skywalker

- but she didn’t have that sort of relationship with them, not really. Sure, she and leia were friends on-screen, but that was it. and luke didn’t really seem to like her all that much. 

- so like, “meh”

- especially since Leia’s technically a Solo or an Organa, so that line working really relied on her relationship with Luke, which wasn’t strong enough

- yea, so that’s that

- the “jedi voices” scene was pretty cool though (AAAAH AHSOKA!! AND ANAKIN!! AND ALL THE OTHER JEDI!!), and I liked her yellow lightsaber (although she could have built her own lightsaber at the BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE, instead of carrying luke’s the whole time)

there are things I like about the sequels, mind you. a lot of things!! but there’s a lot I was disappointed in too.

congrats if you got this far, that was a LOT of salt

[randomeditscreates]

The Force Awakens Breakdown

So I know no one gives a shit about my opinions on movies and my last post about the sequel trilogy [ST] But honestly I want to continue talking about these crap movies. So now that we got that through, lets start.

1) Jar Jar Abrams start this movie by basically ripping off the concept of the OT [Original Trilogy] The First Order [The empire] has taken over with a dark side user [Kylo Ren in this one, and Darth Vader in the OT] with a more powerful dark side user in the background pulling all the strings [Snoke and Creamy Sheeve respectfully] With an opposing side that happening to be small in numbers, [The Rebels and The Resistance(What they're resisting, no fucking clue, but it sounds nice)]

2) Rey Palpatine (I refuse to use the other name) is the protagonist of this story, and just so happens to live in a desert planet, you know like Luke. And happens to be the most laziest character Jar Jar and Kathleen Kennedy ever created. She's kind, and friendly and her only flaw is that she doesn't have any family. She's a scavenger, yet has so much proficient in the force, you would think she's been training for decades. She has great skill in flying ships and fixing them, that you would think, it would at least be a throwaway line. But nope, she has no reasoning for knowing how to fly or fix ships and the only reasoning we really have is that, Jar Jar wanted it, so he put it in. And throughout this movie and following ones, she picks up skills like their pokemon cards because fuck hard work. Now Rey pisses me off, not just because of her lazy character, but because during all the movies, nothing ever fucking happens to her, she doesn't get hurt to an extreme degree like Finn, She doesn't go through a huge revelation, all that happens is that Rey loses Han (someone she barely knows) then she magically beat Kylo,( who if you don't remember has years even decades over Rey in training) and then decides to find Luke. And that leads to the third problem...

3) The movie is too full. for being a movie that is 2 hours and 16 minutes, yes I fucking looked it up, this movie seems to drag on and not develop any of their concepts. Because while I fucking agree that Rian Johnson left fucking nothing for Jar Jar to work with, at least his story had some character development, and yes it dumb and breaks the world but I'll take what I can get. All the main characters in this movie all ends up the same as they start off with. Rey is a happy and kind character with no past, turns to Rey is a happy and kind character with no past and force abilities. Kylo Ren is tangled up Christmas lights drenched in yogurt and acid, and turns into a tangled up Christmas lights drenched in yogurt and acid, who ends up Killing his father. But if you remember is haunted by that death by TLJ [The Last Jedi] Poe Dameron is a self assured Spit-fired Pilot and ends up a Spit-fired self assured Pilot who's Not dead. Even the characters who do get develop, Finn and, oh my god, it's only Finn, get's completely rewritten in TLJ and gets the story arc redone just terribly. We can't even talk about Han, Leia or even Maz, because Han doesn't change and then dies, Leia doesn't get enough screen time to show anything about this character, and Maz is supposed to Yoda in a yellow and female clothing, and they do shit with that too because it leads to this..

4) Maz Kanata and holy fuck, she's literally the reason Han is dead. Maz yells very loudly to the entire cantina that Han Solo is here, which leads for the First Order to be notified. She somehow has Luke's lightsaber [It doesn't get explained, not even in the later movies] and somehow Rey is drawn to it, and leads to Maz giving advice, but you know the shitty type because it ends with Rey running away in the forest for her to get caught by Kylo. She tells Finn that he shouldn't leave, and that it turns makes him severely injured. And if you don't remember she does the same to Han, and he ends up dead. And her cantina gets fucking destroyed after being their for centuries, yet she couldn't give a fuck. and it shows the true issue, Jar Jar and Kathleen Kennedy in extent doesn't give a fuck about characters and just wants to to get from point A to point B with a lot of flashing lights.

5) Han Solo: Character Assassination. A character who developed into a man who was ready to risk it all for the rebellion. A character we loved in the OT is now broken down into his New Hope person all over again. Who apparently has scammed everyone in the galaxy? Um, Jar Jar, I know it might seem strange to you, but a smuggler needs people who trust him to get jobs and therefore receive income. But I guess I shouldn't expect much from the same man that think a Smuggler would want to be easily known or recognized. Also Leia and him are either broken up or divorced and that makes me feel really happy to know a couple that I loved are no longer together and one of this dead. Because Han Solo is just there for fan service and to shoot his gun, because that's what he's here for to go pew pew. Oh and to die, that what all the OT fans wanted, One of the main three characters killed by their own child.

6) Subtle doesn't exist in this movie, everything is given the delicacy of a hammer. We find out that Kylo or Ben, (I really don't fucking give a shit) is the son of Han solo, by Snoke just saying, the droid is in the possession of your father Han Solo, like no shit I assumed that when you mentioned the Millennium Falcon. Who would you think I thought Kylo was the son of, Chewbacca? Finn's story arc is the only one that makes you think, and brings a new aspect to the movies, and to the Stormtroopers. I just fucking wish we could do the same for the others Stormtroopers, because the other are killed with no regards that most of them, as Finn states were sold into this at a young age. Good job Resistance for killing all these people who was forced into this with no regards. How does a series that came like a decade before you (Star Wars: The Clones War Series) manage to develop the concepts that stormtroopers or clones are not mindless drones better than you. (The Rookie episode in the first season helps flesh out all the clones and they only have 25 minutes per episode, get you're shit together Lucas Films) And these are only the examples I could think of, off the top of my head.

7) Rey is a great example of Sexism, but instead it goes the other way around then usual. All the male characters are laughed at and or ridiculed, but all the females are perfect and don't need to change. One of the last scene is a great example of this, Kylo Ren, the one with years of training and two powerful masters who trained him, gets beat by Rey, someone who has no skill with a lightsaber and didn't even know she could use the force until Jar Jar decided to pull it out his ass. Even Finn who has at least close quarters fighting skills under his belt couldn't beat Kylo, and has to be saved by Rey. Now I will admit to being a feminist but Kathleen version completely differs from mine. Because while I believe both men and women are both capable of reaching the same level of skill, Kathleen think women should be able to do incredible things without working for it. And it clear by her stupid "The Force is female" Like shut the fuck up, the force was never given a gender, why the fuck are you doing it now? I also found out that most of the Crew in Lucas Film, happens to be female. and it's clear who's doing that. Again I am a feminist but I hate when people just have diversity for the sake of diversity instead of the person's capabilities. It's very vindictive of the Feminist movement, The Black Lives Movement and LGBT+ agenda as well, as we're trying to make people see them as just like everyone else which they fucking are (I will not stand for any form of bigotry and if you don't like something simply because of someone's race, gender or sexuality, you are shit human being) , they just so happen to not be a straight white man. And that they have the same struggles as everyone else. Also we already had strong female characters in the series without the big emphasis on the fact that they have a vagina. As from the basis, Star Wars was never about gender and because of this we got fully developed character we could relate to.

Now Dishonorable Mentions

A) This movie is fucking 2 hours and 16 minutes long, yet it feel so unfinished

B) Jar Jar Abrams deep seated love for mystery boxes and how it get more screen time then the actual Character it involves (Rey)

C) The movie could've been great, they're was definitely potential but it was dwarfed by mystery boxes and Visuals

D) Rey is not a Mary Sue in this Movie, she becomes one by the end of TLJ but she's not yet. So I guess it one positive.

E) Jar Jar inability for world Building, and doesn't even fucking tries to explain how the First Order even began to rise.

F) Poe Fucking Dameron, and the amount of time that is dedicated to him. I love him but come on, just make it someone like Han, as it could bring up the relationship between him and his son, which could then bring more emphasis when we reveal their relationship. But no lets bring up a character who we all assume is dead until about the end. And then does absolutely fucking nothing.

G) And Lastly when we see Han die, we don't get a scene of any of the characters we give a fuck about and who knows Han mourn his death, instead we just have two characters who had about 15 minutes of screen time with Han, and Chewbacca. And it doesn't get better because Rian Johnson decides in the second movie that we don't need a scene of Luke mourning over the man who fought side by side with him and is his Sister's husband. No Instead we get a scene of him drinking tit milk.

So that's it, well for now, I'll make another post for this if I have any more issues. But that it for now. I would also like to make it damn clear now, as I'll probably continue this, that me tearing apart a movie is based soley on the technical aspects of it. And that if you enjoyed this movie, you are entitled to it, but you cannot defend this movie's writing , because as I hoped I made clear, the writing is very much shit.

[falllpoutboy]

not to complain about the sequel trilogy for the nearly trilionth time but literally most of the problems i have with it can all be traced back to the last fucking jedi by ruin johnson like traditionally middle chapters of a trilogy are supposed to build character and advance the overall plot not to waste time on stupid shit like luke’s alien titty milk and rey being a blank fucking slate for kylo to manipulate and finn being abused and tased for amusement like it doesnt take a rocket scientist to write that shit and that is why tros fell so flat on its face 

[kyliafanfiction]

Anyone who has followed me for more than a few weeks probably knows, I really, really, really, really, really, don’t like the sequel trilogy. Like, at all. I don’t talk about it constantly, but it comes up periodically, because A) it’s hard to escape the sequels on Tumblr, and B) I consume a lot of star wars fanfic or other media and poke around on wookiepedia a lot and of course, the whole canon/legends divide, etc.

And like, I have many issues with Disney’s stewardship of the canon, but the Sequel Trilogy is just... awful.

And yet, the most infuriating part is... even keeping with the same basic core concepts, the Force Awakens (the only one I’ve actually *seen* of the sequels and it was so bad I refused to watch the other two, and everything I’ve heard about them confirms my opinion) could have been a really, really, really good movie.

I mean, seriously, just find someone other than JJ “Mystery boxes and nostalgia” Abrams to run the movie, and you have a better movie. But for god’s sake, I can throw together a better plot in fifteen minutes at the bus stop!

So I did.

(I didn’t plan to, but the thought started to invade my brain when I scrolled past a link to a ‘thinkpiece’ about how Kylo Ren is the face of the alt right or something stupid like that and I was like... he’s not, but he could have been).

So, the thing is, the whole Resistance/First Order/Starkiller Base/Destroying the capital of the New Republic...

That’s all rooted in JJ wanting to A) Say ‘fuck you’ to the Prequels because ‘politics is boring, let’s have more explosions’ and also B) his desire to recreate a New Hope but with a bigger budget and crazier special effects. 

But, let’s take some of the same basic dynamics the movie works with (Kylo Ren, First Order, Rey, Finn, Poe, etc) and tell a better story. Imagine - the movie is set entirely on the capital of the new Republic (which should be Coruscant, but it doesn’t really matter where). There’s a terrorist group active in the New Republic, one that wants to bring back the ideals of the Empire - the ‘order’ and ‘security’ and so on. They think of themselves as loyalists fighting the illegitimate authority of the New Republic - the Old Republic was legally dissolved with the support of the Senate, after all, right? But this New Republic imposed itself by force.

So, this group has a very prominent member, one of the leaders, known only by the Nomme-de-plume Kylo Ren. He makes speeches for the Order via hijacking the holonet or on Space youtube or whatever, and no one can trace him. He wears a mask, has a voice scrambler, etc. Only a few members of the First Order know that he is actually Ben Solo, son of the leading senator and war hero Leia Organa/Solo/Organa-Solo, and his whole backstory for becoming Kylo Ren would be about mirroring the way alt-right, neo-nazi and fascistic groups IRL recruit and radicalize young men by preying on them (don’t remove all the mind manipulation by Snoke from a young age, but play up other means of manipulation and radicalization). Meanwhile, there’s Finn. He was a young, poor orphaned kid, also recruited by the order, brainwashed (with conventional brainwashing tactics used by cults and terrorist groups all the time IRL - isolation, lovebombing, reducation, etc) and raised to be a terrorist in the First Order, fighting for them. Instead of wasting that plotline as JJ did in the Sequels, instead, there’d be some serious exploration of Finn’s actions as a member of the Order (but he’d leave at the start of the first movie... but not ‘on his first mission’) and he’d be trying more often to get some of his former friends in the Order to defect as well. Let’s not waste the potential of Finn as a former ‘stormtrooper’ (He probably wouldn’t have the armor in this version of the movie, since that’s a little conspicuous) Poe, instead of a pilot in “The Resistance”, would be a former pilot for the Republic Navy, who after doing his service, joined up with the Republic’s version of the FBI, and is involved on the cases dealing with the First Order terrorists. BB-8 would still be a thing - and instead of having a map to Luke Skywalker (who is off on the Rim rebuilding the Jedi order, which wasn’t pointlessly killed all over again since Ben Solo, despite having force powers, didn’t go to the Temple - admittedly gotta work on that part, but the key is the Order is small and focused on rebuilding so they’re not present in the first movie, save a cameo by Luke at the end, gotta keep that) BB-8 would have captured some sort of message intercept that identifies who Kylo Ren is under that mask... but before Poe can get the data, he’s captured and loses BB-8. I think we could easily go with Finn, who has been developing doubts to then, still rescues Poe as in the show, but gotta show that conflict in Finn better than the movie did (because again, JJ Abrams can’t write a movie worth a damn) Which is where Rey comes in - Rey, rather than living on a planet that is oh so conveniently similar to Tatooine, she lives in the undercity of the Republic’s capital, the poor slums and shit that everyone ignores. She still makes a living scavanging tech and trading it for food and supplies, etc, just as a kid raised on the streets and slums rather than abandoned on a desert planet. Rey would not be a Palpatine either because fuck that noise. She has the force, was never found by the Jedi, etc. She finds BB-8, maybe the droid fell down a garbage chute from the upper city, and like in canon, does not trade him, instead helping get him to his owner, which is how she meets up with Finn and Poe. I’m not 100% sure on all the middle parts, but instead of Starkiller base, the First Order is planning a serious terrorist attack, and Poe can’t communicate with his superiors, so the three of them have to intervene. 

In the process, Rey uses the force while trying to fight Kylo Ren, Finn and Poe manage to stop the attack/defuse the bomb/whatever, and it’s revealed to all that Kylo Ren, terrorist leader, is actually Ben Solo, son of Senator Leia. Which is a huge scandal, obviously, and the last bits of the movie would include Leia having to fend off like, an investigation or Senate inquiry by her rivals who want to try to pin things on her because of this/ But now Kylo Ren having the Force is known to the Republic’s security apparatus, so they need some Jedi backup - and Rey has the force and needs training, and Leia thinks the only person who might be able to save a son she never realized was so far gone is her brother, who brought one person back from the dark side. And so, they go to find where Luke and the Jedi have set up shop on some hidden rim world to rebuild, and cue the end of the movie with Rey meeting Luke.

And that... that’s a better movie. It doesn’t just wipe away the heroes’ victory at the end of Return of the Jedi by destroying the new republic and the Jedi, the First Order isn’t inexplicably powerful and large, and the New Republic doesn’t leave fighting said Order to a shoestring budget ‘Resistance’. Kylo Ren’s fall to the dark side gets to be explored as an examination of real world radicalization, Finn’s backstory as a stormtrooper isn’t put to waste, and the whole movie doesn’t read as a pointless rip off of A New Hope. And I just threw this together in fifteen minutes, so Disney, with presumably some talented and professional writers they could have actually gotten involved in this, surely could have made a goddamn better movie than they did!

[the-desolated-quill]

The Mandalorian Represents Everything I Hate About Disney - Quill’s Scribbles

This post contains spoilers for the first two episodes, if you care about that sort of thing.

Yes, after four months of wallowing in a depressive funk, your lord and saviour the Desolated Quill has returned to (hopefully) start posting semi-regularly again. And what better way to mark my return than by kicking my favourite dead horse Disney.

So what have you been doing since this coronavirus epidemic started? I for one have been spending most of the time trying and failing to persuade my mother not to get a Disney+ subscription. The rise of streaming TV services represent the very height of greed and stupidity within the film and television industry. See it’s not enough for these studios to share their profits with the likes of Netflix and Amazon. Rampant capitalism dictates that they must have every conceivable penny imaginable, hence why we’re seeing the slow gating off of content and the emergence of new streaming platforms like Disney+, Starzplay, DC Universe, HBO Max, Apple TV and YouTube. Yes, even Youtube has a subscription service now. It’s like that episode of Oprah Winfrey. You get a streaming service, you get a streaming service, you get a streaming service, EVERYBODY gets a streaming service! Except the problem is that the reason why Netflix and Amazon took off was because it was convenient to get all of our entertainment from one location. Now with content spread out across multiple platforms, customers are having to pick and choose who to subscribe to as only the very rich can afford to subscribe to everyone. It’s ostensibly a televisual arms race coupled with classism. Make no mistake, the motivation behind the rise of streaming services is not motivated by customer satisfaction nor artistic merit, but rather corporate greed. And Disney is by far the worst offender. There is literally not a single reason why they couldn’t have kept their stuff on Netflix. The only reason Disney+ exists is so that they can get their grubby mitts on even more money than they already have (which is quite a lot).

So my mum got a Disney+ subscription because she never fucking listens to a single word I say and we ended up sitting down to watch the first two episodes of The Mandalorian. The new Star Wars TV spinoff created by Iron Man director Jon Favreau set in-between Return of The Jedi and The Force Awakens.

As much as I have complaints about the way Disney have handled the Star Wars license, I confess I was curious and dare I say even excited about The Mandalorian when it was first announced. I’ve gone on record to say that I didn’t want nor care about a sequel trilogy because, as far as I was concerned, Return Of The Jedi was a perfect ending to the Skywalker saga and we didn’t need to see what happened next. That’s like wondering what happens after Cinderella married Prince Charming. We don’t need to see it. They lived happily ever after. The end. The spinoffs, on the other hand, including the Anthology films and The Mandalorian, I was much more excited for because it was an opportunity to tell different kinds of stories and explore areas of the Star Wars universe we wouldn’t normally get to see in the main films. If the Star Wars franchise has to be expanded upon, I’d rather it was like this. Lets move away from the Skywalkers and the Jedi and concentrate on other stuff. So a space western set after the original trilogy depicting a lone bounty hunter trying to make ends meet after the fall of the Empire was very appealing to me.

Sadly that’s not what I got.

I’ll just be blunt. I saw the first two episodes of The Mandalorian and I didn’t like it very much. It’s not bad as such. It’s competently made. I’ve seen some behind the scenes videos and there’s clearly a lot of talented people working hard on this show. That being said, the story of The Mandalorian is... well... kind of rubbish.

So lets talk about it, shall we?

As far as I’m concerned there are three reasons why The Mandalorian doesn’t work. The first is the complete lack of tension. It’s a problem that’s plagued Star Wars since The Phantom Menace. Despite all the challenges and obstacles that are thrown at the characters, it never seems to affect them or even pose much of a threat. We saw that with Anakin Skywalker in the prequels and Rey in the sequels, and it’s the same here. The Mandalorian is this amazing dude who’s skilled and awesome and the bestest fighter ever. He can take out all these bad guys single-handedly and can do all these cool things. Except none of that is interesting. It’s boring. People like to defend Rey saying she’s no worse than Luke Skywalker, but that’s not true because, unlike Rey, Luke isn’t perfect. He struggles, he makes mistakes, and he grows and evolves over time. Rey is just this perfect woman who can do no wrong and who can pull any random superpower out of her arse for the sake of plot convenience. It’s just bad writing. While The Mandalorian never gets quite as bad as that, there does seem to be this obsession with making this awesome, cool dude, but that ends up coming at the cost of any tension or threat the story could have. 

In the first episode, we see his bounty explore his ship. This could have been an opportunity to create some tension. Maybe he could try and sabotage the ship. Or try to escape. Complicate matters for the Mandalorian. But no. The Mandalorian knew what the guy was doing and instantly recaptures him. Same goes for a scene later on when the Mandalorian and some killer robot has to fight a whole army of mercenaries. How are they going to get out of this? Very easily it turns out. Not only do they beat them within a couple of minutes, the mercenaries are also clearly the worst shots ever. The robot is like seven foot tall and moving at the speed of frozen treacle, and yet they don’t manage to land a single hit on the guy. Where’s the suspense? Where’s the danger? By the end of the first episode, I was just bored senseless.

Which leads me to my second biggest problem. The total lack of originality. Is it really too much to ask for someone to actually come up with their own fucking ideas? Literally everything in The Mandalorian is basically nicked wholesale from other, better Star Wars films. The first two planets we visit in episode one are basically variations on Tatooine with the same architecture and everything. There’s even that eye thing that pops out of the door like in Jabba’s Palalce in Return Of The Jedi.  Then, to add insult to injury, we then end up on the actual Tatooine (or at least what I assume is the actual Tatooine. I mean there are Jawas). The Mandalorian is like this Frankenstein assembly of Star Wars memorabilia. Everything has been taken from other films when it makes no sense to do so. The Mandalorian freezes his bounties in carbonite, except that was a process specific to Cloud City. Darth Vader improvised a trap using what was at hand to try and catch Luke. He wasn’t even sure if Luke would survive the freezing process, hence why they tested it on Han Solo first. The only reason it’s here in The Mandalorian is for fanwank purposes. Same goes for the stormtroopers. Why the fuck are there stormtroopers?! Remember where we are in the Star Wars story. The Empire has fallen and the New Republic is taking over. Imperialists are going to be pretty unpopular, wouldn’t you say? So why the fuck would you have stormtroopers wandering around in full armour out in the open? It makes zero sense. Even the killer robot is copied whole sale from IG-88 from Empire Strikes Back. Why don’t you come up with your own killer robot design?

Then there’s this little shit:

Yeah, I kind of knew this was coming because I’ve seen the GIFs circulating on Tumblr beforehand, which kind of ruined the ending of the first episode somewhat. But even if I didn’t know this was coming, the ‘twist’ still wouldn’t work because it’s not really a twist if you think about it. What actually happens? The Mandalorian finds the Child and it’s an eighty year old gremlin. Okay. So what? The only reason it’s ‘shocking’ is because it vaguely looks like Yoda. Other than that, who gives a shit? It doesn’t really mean anything.

Which leads me to my third biggest problem. Why should I give a shit about anything that’s going on? What are the stakes? There aren’t any. We don’t know anything about the Mandalorian and we have no reason to care about him or his job. We don’t know anything about the Child or why he’s so important. The only reason people are interested is because it reminds them of the other films. As a story in and of itself, there’s simply nothing there. I don’t know who any of these people are, what they want, why they want it and what will happen if they fail. So why should I give a shit? And nowhere is this more apparent than in the second episode. The Jawas agree to give the Mandalorian’s ship parts back if he retrieves an egg from some monster. Why do they want the egg? I don’t know. I literally have no idea. They never say. And yet that’s what the entire episode revolves around. This isn’t a story. It’s just random stuff happening. And what’s more it has nothing to do with the overall plot. You can literally cut out the entirety of episode two and it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference. Same is true of that annoying fuckface that keeps insisting ‘he has spoken’ (I swear by the end I wanted to kick that old git in the face, he irritated me so much). We waste the second half of the first episode watching the Mandalorian piss about with some toad/horse thing only to then make his way back to the ship on foot in episode two. So what was the fucking point of that then? Why is anything fucking happening?

And this is what perfectly sums up the problems with Star Wars under Disney’s regime. If anything The Mandalorian acts as a microcosm for everything that’s wrong with the current movies and indeed Disney as a company. These movies aren’t movies. They’re products designed to pander to a gullible fanbase’s nostalgia. The entire sequel trilogy was basically the original trilogy repackaged and resold with nothing unique or original to offer. And the reason The Rise Of Skywalker felt so unsatisfying to everyone watching was because the story was never planned. They pivoted it to whatever the focus groups enjoyed about the previous film. That’s why the whole trilogy felt so uneven and directionless. And it’s not just Star Wars. Obviously there’s the live action remakes of the Renaissance movies, now with added nods and winks to meta commentary without actually addressing actual complaints people may have had. This also extends to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. How many of these fucking movies have we had where the bad guy tries to take over the world with an Infinity Stone? Thor: The Dark World and Guardians Of The Galaxy are pretty much the exact same movie. Spider-Man: Far From Home, a film co-produced with Sony, is ostensibly a rehash of Iron Man 3, which in turn had recycled a lot of its story from Pixar’s The Incredibles, another Disney product. Even Black Panther, a movie I absolutely adore, borrows its basic plot structure from Thor: Ragnarok. Disney are so unoriginal and so lazy that they have effectively started cannibalising themselves. The Mandalorian is just the latest example of this. At least with Black Panther you had a talented filmmaker like Ryan Coogler who was able to take these borrowed elements and spin it into something more meaningful and with more emotional impact. At least there was some actual passion put into that film.

People are no doubt going to have a go at me saying I’m being too harsh and that I haven’t given The Mandalorian a fair chance. Well I’m sorry, but I’ve given it two episodes and I’m bored out of my mind. It’s a cynically produced, uninspired load of waffle. I’m not going to waste my time sitting through more episodes in the hopes that it might get good later on. That’s not how good storytelling is supposed to work and it sickens me to think that this has pretty much become the new normal for this industry.

[lajulie24]

TROS thoughts (spoilers)

- I mostly enjoyed it, but honestly I think that’s because I’d gone in with the attitude that the entire sequel trilogy is really well-financed fan fiction with some new characters I really like.

- But fuck you JJ for that stupid kiss. I saw it coming a mile away and was like, please don’t, please don’t, aw fuck me they did.

- Rey did a lot of cool stuff, and I LOVED that Leia was training her in the Force. Also Leia had a lightsaber!

- I’m very mad at how JJ walked up to Force-sensitive Finn like six times, and then did NOTHING with that.

- Justice for Rose Tico, who had like four fucking lines. I need to write a bunch of Rose-centric fanfic now.

- I liked Jannah a lot, but why TF are you introducing all these fucking new characters in the last movie and then giving us five seconds of story with them? Her story could have been so cool!

- I definitely approve of how they took out Hux. Thanks for not making him a hero, but a petty bitch who just wants to give Kyle Ron his comeuppance. And then just dies. Ha!

- I’m not sure how I feel about the Han thing. I had a feeling it was coming, and I didn’t hate it, but it mostly makes me mad about what they did to Han in TFA again.

- That’s actually how I feel about this whole Kylo/Ben redemption shit. Kudos to Driver, who really did do a good job, but basically EVERYONE had to die to service some basic white dude with anger issues in his road to redemption. Han, Leia, Luke, half the Resistance.... so dumb. Rey almost died multiple times because of him.

- The Leia stuff I think they did the best they could with. I cried when Chewie mourned her especially (although that kind of made me sad about both Carrie and Peter Mayhew, so bonus tears).

- If Han’s memory was talking to Ben I kind of wish he’d said something like “your mother and I are together now” or “your mother is gone, but she’ll always be with you.” The way it went, it kind of made Leia’s death to serve Ben, which...no. Leia had a life that was not just about serving others.

- Speaking of Chewie, I almost cursed aloud when it looked like they made Rey kill him. This is worse than dropping a moon on him.

- What was up with the FinnRey constant tease? It was like someone was writing a Finn/Rey fic and then Kylo wrote the last chapter. It’s wartime, folks. Tell people what they mean to you now.

- Not to mention the FinnPoe tease.

- Also, what the fuck was up with Poe’s characterization? We see some of his TFA characterization, then it’s like he gets haunted by the ghost of TLJ and turns into an asshole for a while. Then real Poe is back.

- Also, I will rant more about this elsewhere, but clearly the supposed Story Group at LF is just sitting around smoking weed instead of making sure the novels and the movies and the tie-ins all tell a consistent story. They jossed most of Poe’s backstory from Before the Awakening and several parts of Bloodline, and probably some other things too. (Of course, if anyone had read Before the Awakening they might not have given Poe a very similar lesson he had to learn in TLJ.)

- A spice runner? The fuck? Also, Poe can be his own character, you don’t have to turn him into Han Solo In the Mos Eisley Cantina, okay? Han had character development beyond that, btw. (Begins to draw up plans for Poe fixit fics...)

- So....Force Ghosts can....catch lightsabers and lift things with the Force now? The fuck? (Although thank you for at least partially redeeming TLJ Luke. Though his hair was atrocious.)

- Everyone in the Force has bad hair. Luke, Han...Leia probably has split ends now.

- I was worried about what would happen with Lando, but they did use him pretty well. Definitely liked the Lando tour to drum up support around the galaxy.

- FIVE SECONDS OF WEDGE!

- Too much Greg Grundberg. Sorry, I’m just not a fan.

- Where was Jess Pava? Karé Kun? You have a jazillion characters in the comics and tie-ins, why not use them? Of course, this means they didn’t die, soooooo.....

- I kind of had a similar quibble with the “strike me down and I win” business with Palpatine as I did with the Luke scene in ROTJ. So, they can’t strike you down because then the lightsider goes dark and you win, and they can’t just not fight because you win, so why are we even bothering to have this conversation?

- The “what’s your last name, Rey?” business was kind of forced, especially since there are so many people in the GFFA who only go by one name. Do people go around asking Chewie for his last name all the time?

- I did love that the new trio actually spent time together and went on adventures. And except for some of the arguing that seemed a bit forced (for a while I was afraid they were trying to give Poe and Rey a HanLeia on Hoth thing except without any of the affection), overall they were pretty great.

- They did go to some cool places. Although if that was Endor, it really got fucked up by the Death Star, huh? And do you have to kill a planet right after you visited there? Seriously?

- It takes some of the impact out of the destruction of a planet when you just off them constantly.

- I’m still deciding how I feel about Young Luke and Young Leia CGI business. They were a bit cartoony looking.

- The Jedi voices thing was cool. I liked the emphasis that Rey wasn’t alone.

- I really liked Rey’s staff lightsaber. Making it her own. Cool.

[mrmallardsmobileposts]

How I Think The Star Wars Sequels Should Have Happened: Another MrMallard Nerd Moment

(MAJOR SPOILERS)

The Force Awakens:

fine jumping on point. Not perfect, but honestly a return to form in regards to making Star Wars movies fun again. Keep TFA as-is, warts and all - the trick is paying this movie off by the end.

The Last Jedi:

Less faux-Guardians of the Galaxy humor. That's not to say "no humor", I honestly thought Luke Skywalker had the best jokes of the movie, but less "your mother" and less "Finn wakes up from a coma and drips IV fluid everywhere, Wakka Wakka!". The former is corny, the latter is undignified and actively cheapens character development from the prior movie.

Cut the stampeding race-beasts, because it reeks of Disney's "fuck you we're Disney" money, but keep Canto Bight as a whole. The alien designs are charming - it's a nice moment of fanservice, along with the Jizz music. It also serves as a nice character-building exercise for Rose and Finn.

Ultimately, I think it might have been a better idea to kill off Leia in this movie considering Carrie Fisher's passing. I don't dislike her in this movie, and I honestly enjoyed the scene of her in space - my first thought was "holy fuck she can use the force!!" - but I think it would have been better for her to pass on in this movie, both logistically and for her character. That, or they should have scaled back her cobbled together Frankenstein-performance of CGI, cut lines and recontextualised footage in TRoS. Either/or.

Keep the mutiny plot with Poe, but something has to be done with how they treat the secret plan. The resolution to the mutiny plot was the thing that bothered me the most with TLJ, but it's pretty much the only thing for Poe to do in the movie and it adds conflict to the main story I guess. Making the Holdo/Poe seem a little less personal might help? idk. honestly a lot of this storyline felt forced.

Don't try and resolve Rey's backstory in this movie. Keep it as a running mystery. I understand that they were trying to go for a clever subversion in this movie, but it just added another stupid thing that TRoS bad to address and it honestly kinda ruins the trilogy.

Honestly, either cut Crait entirely and make it the beginning of the next movie - bc the movie's already two hours long and it feels like the final battle stretches the movie out beyond its natural ending point - or shorten it a bit and make it a bit more functional. It looks cool, but at that point it's like tacking an extra mile onto a marathon.

Also, don't shoehorn a failed heroic sacrifice with Finn imo. That, or give him more screentime and character development to build up to that moment. Post-TFA, he's really half-baked, and I honestly think he should have been more of a focal character next to Rey. The heroic sacrifice felt like it came out of nowhere, and by thwarting it and adding the Rose Tico scene, it felt like a waste of time even having it in there. It comes and goes with no fanfare.

Honestly, I would have preferred if Luke stayed alive at the end of the movie. I think his death was a movie too soon. Saying that, I think they nailed his death in this movie - if they were gonna kill him off, I think they did it right. Also, don't kill off Snoke. It's a cool scene, but it fucks up the next movie.

Re: Rose Tico - she's not my favorite part of the movie, but I don't actively hate her and I think the response to her character that Kelly Marie Tran had to face was absolutely disgusting. I think her plotline with Finn was a little underbaked, and that scene at the end where she prevents his heroic sacrifice just kinda sidelines them both. I think making her a navigator would have helped her character in TLJ and TRoS.

In short: trim a few excessive CGI scenes, cut a few cornball jokes out, play around with the characterisation and tone of the mutiny plot, dignify Finn's character instead of reducing him to a rehashed coward, comedic relief character and pointless failed Rebel martyr, and maybe keep Luke Skywalker alive at the end. Bring the movie in at around 2 hours max.

Keep Luke Skywalker as-is, bc his character is a highlight of TLJ.

The Rise of Skywalker:

Kill off Luke Skywalker in this movie. Seriously, just cut and paste his death at the end of TLJ into this movie. Work him into a reduced role when Rey junks her ship, like the force projection messed him up and he doesn't have much longer to live, and have him help her when she returns to his island planet instead of adding a phoned-in Force Ghost appearance. Maybe have her there when he passes?

Reduce Leia's role in this movie instead of stitching together a Frankenstein's Monster of a performance. Not to be morbid by that reference - it's just that everything she says feels so stilted and wrong, like you can definitely tell they've thrown all the scraps they have left into her character in this movie. It doesn't feel natural or respectful for her character to spit out non-sequiters for the characters to respond to in an equally unnatural sort of way.

Honestly? Canonise Fey/Rinn, however you want to portmanteau Rey and Finn's ship name. If you give Finn more of a character arc in TLJ instead of side-lining him, and establish that he and Rey are particularly close - which they are IMO - and then pay off that "I have something to tell you" beat with a confession of love. This isn't a stab against Reylo, though I've certainly had words to say about Reylo, I just think Finn/Rey is a more wholesome ship and I prefer this dynamic to the fuckin dark side/light side paradigm of Reylo. I Just don't care for it. Kylo Ren's conflicted nature doesn't have to resolve in romance. Gimme Rey/Finn.

Snoke gets offed by Palpatine. There's no breeding vat for Snokes, but if the movie wants to suggest that he's still just a puppet or a creation, that's fine. That, or build Snoke up as the bad guy, and either follow through on that or have Palpatine be a twist halfway through the movie.

Maybe make Palpatine a Sith Ghost? They do exist to some degree. Or have him stuck in some other limbo that requires him to hijack Rey. Anything is better than that "if I do this you do this, but then I'll do this so you would have to do this, but really I'm going to do this so either way my entire plan was completely unnecessary lmao" clusterfuck where he's a living corpse impaled on a robot arm.

Cut out the macguffins, or make them feel less inconsequential. Okay, so the dagger storyline involves rebooting C3PO. It has stakes and gravitas to a degree. Cool - keep that. What the fuck is up with the wayfinders though? Why are there only two? Why do they need to be so convoluted?

Maybe have Maz Kanata talk about Luke's lightsaber, and/or have her involved in finding a way to Palpatine. It would pay off her appearance in TFA and explain her importance to Luke.

By making Rose Tico a great navigator in TLJ, her role on the team can be expanded in TRoS and she can do like star charts and stuff for all the different worlds they're going to - she can come along instead of being fucked over by JJ Abrams in this movie. She can even help with Maz Kanata's wayfinding plan. In short - make her a part of the team.

Honestly, fuck the Knights of Ren right off. They're a waste of time. That, or set them up in TLJ - hell, have one of them on Canto Bight and another one on Snoke's ship. Maybe even retcon Phasma into being a Knight of Ren. Anything but bringing them back as a mook squad in this movie, with no weight or character.

Honestly? Show Palpatine surviving the Death Star crash. The retcon is all the more painful for being completely and utterly unexplained. Doesn't matter if you have to touch the source material to do it, CG in a force shield as Palpatine falls through fire and have him hobble to a life support pod that takes him to where he is in TRoS. Literally anything is better than "Somehow, Palpatine returned".

Either cut the healing powers, or leave them in sans Reylo kiss.

In short: reduce Leia's role instead of using cut content and a CGI puppet to stitch together a performance, leave Luke alive until this movie, kill Snoke in this movie OR have him be the big bad, make Finn/Rey a thing over Reylo - again, no hate, I just prefer this pairing over Reylo - write more details about Palpatine's survival, either put some Knights of Ren into TLJ or don't have them at all, get rid of the Wayfinder macguffins and/or work Maz Kanata and "master navigator" Rose Tico into a plot to find Palpatine.

At the end of the day, there should have been a planning committee for the Star Wars story, not for the merchandise. You can see from how the sequel trilogy crammed out merchandise that Disney was clearly asking for marketable merch, but the story is a trainwreck - there was a Star Wars committee, just not where the property needed one.

The sequel trilogy was a worthwhile experiment imo - it didn't pay off, but it was worth doing just to see if it was possible. But even then, I would prefer three decent movies over a couple of experimental trainwrecks retroactively ruining one decent movie.

This post was mostly trying to work with what the movies already have, though by TRoS you really do have to start overhauling shit to make it work. In my eyes, the longest that these movies should run is two hours - any more than that is a slog, especially when the movie feels like it takes two hours. The Last Jedi felt like two and a half hours. The Rise of Skywalker felt like a two hour movie crammed into 80 minutes, despite the fact it was longer than 2 hours. The best way to make these movies more watchable is to make them shorter - cut out superfluous money shot scenes like the Canto Bight chase, have more efficient scenes to balance out the stylish scenes. The sequel trilogy is short on efficiency imo, and without a movie where it feels like progress is being made, the style doesn't work.

So tweak some things to make each movie more efficient.

[dalekofchaos]

The complete lack of Anakin Skywalker in the Sequel Trilogy is an insult to the story of Star Wars, Anakin’s story and in the end they destroyed Anakin’s fall and redemption

The fact that Anakin is never mentioned by name, let alone shows up as a force ghost. Just shows how much Disney, JJ Abrams, Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy were so afraid of the Prequels and couldn’t even bother to have the man who is the main focus of Star Wars to be featured in the sequel trilogy period. The Star Wars Saga was about Anakin and his family. I will forever be bitter and disgusted that Disney went out of their way to erase his presence.

Disney did everything to show what Anakin trained for, struggled for, went to the dark side for and sacrificed everything for was pointless. They introduced force healing, force resurrection, Rey taking the prophecy for herself, his family was tormented by Palpatine until his bloodline became extinct and now we know people can communicate with Tusken raiders. If all of this existed in the prequels, Anakin would’ve never even become Darth Vader. They made Anakin’s entire fall and redemption completely pointless.

I don’t know what it is with Disney, but apparently they get off with backhandedly disrespecting Anakin at every opportunity they get.

I do love Rey, but I agree with this YouTube comment I found a year ago “Rey single handedly destroyed Anakin's entire legacy, and made his whole life a joke. - you don't need to train to be stupidly powerful with the lightsaber or the force. Training isn't necessary anymore, as Rey proves in TFA and TLJ, and in some ways in TROS since I doubt Leia taught her force heal, force skype or force lightning. Thus, Anakin's tough decision to leave his mother in slavery while training to be a Jedi powerful enough to one day save her is made pointless. - you don't need to be in control of your powers. Hell, fits of unexplained anger are encouraged and other characters love you for it. Rey can be rude, destructive and irrational all she wants, and everyone supports her, while Anakin was always taught to obey orders and not think for himself, furthering his feeling of being enslaved and controlled. But nah, he was just wrong I guess. - the path to the dark side is no longer the easy and fast one. Everyone can just decide freely, flip flop between allegiances and do whatever the fuck they want to. I don't know what Anakin was tempted by, Rey is angry all the time, uses force lightning, a power only the most powerful sith can do, and is never tempted in the slightest, always making the morally perfect decisions and never giving in to any temptations. Just be incorruptible, Anakin! - You can force heal easily at no cost. Anakin's mother died for nothing, as did Padme. Anakin's whole turn to the dark side was made utterly ridiculous by this movie. Anakin trained for years, mastering everything he could, striving for more knowledge and wisdom to be powerful enough to save and protect those around him, when he could have just done everything he wanted by closing his eyes. Fucking hell Rey, is there anything you aren't perfect at. - He didn't even kill Palpatine. He didn't redeem himself. He didn't bring peace to the galaxy. He did bring order though, the First Order. Fucking hell, did he actually do anything right or did Rey seriously outclass him in every _single thing he ever did This trilogy just shits on everything that came before. Everyone in Star Wars sucks because Rey is just perfect at everything she does, and all the other characters, with their flaws, struggles and problems they have to overcome just look stupid compared to her and her god powers. I hate this trilogy so much omg words can't describe it”

Let’s look at how much damage was done by not showing Anakin and how much the Sequels destroyed Anakin’s story and legacy

Anakin never warns his children about Snokeatine preying over his grandson, just think if Anakin told them a powerful and ancient dark side user was targeting Ben, Han, Lando, Chewie, Luke and Leia all would’ve gotten together and killed Snoke and by doing that, killing the First/Final Order in the crib.

Anakin never tells his children Palpatine himself is alive. If Anakin told them the truth, he could’ve directed Luke and Leia to his wayfinder, then Orchi’s ship and the stupid knife map. They would find both wayfinders and Luke and Leia would’ve killed Palpatine on Exegol. 

Anakin doesn't warn Leia that visions are not all they seem or how he lost himself because of a vision and tells her not to fall for the same trap he did. 

Anakin never once visits his grandson during his Jedi training or his time as Kylo Ren and tell him his story, Anakin appearing before his grandson and telling him HIS SIDE of HIS STORY could’ve prevented Ben’s fall

Anakin by name is never mentioned

Rey, someone who believed Luke was only a myth. Suddenly knows that Luke redeemed Darth Vader(again, Anakin is never mentioned by name)

Anakin does not appear before his son in his time of need. Instead Yoda does. Anakin knew all there is about failure and what happens when you fall to the dark side.  “failure, the greatest teacher is,” is bullshit. Yoda never learned this lesson to begin with. Yoda is the last person who should be saying anything like this to Luke. Anakin should have went to Luke, not Yoda. You know who would have been the perfect person to tell Luke that failure is the greatest teacher? His father, Anakin Skywalker. If anyone deserved that moment, it was Anakin Skywalker. Both because this should have been his chance to speak with his son AND because when someone is the embodiment of the failures of the Jedi Order, they’re really the one best qualified to call out the bullshit of that organization. Anakin would’ve been the best person to tell Luke to confront Kylo, his grandson. He knows failure more than anyone. Failing to save his mother, failing to save Padme, his failure into giving into the dark side and his fall. Anakin would’ve told him. “It wasn’t your fault what happened to Ben, I’m asking you to come back and save your sister, my daughter. Leia needs you. You never gave up on me. Don’t give up on your friends, your sister or even yourself. You saved me when I thought all was lost, there is still time to make things right. Remember you are a Jedi, like me. Not the last of the old Jedi, Luke. The first of the new.“

Anakin died to save his son. He does not attempt to save him.

The fact that Anakin didn’t even show up to speak to his son when he was at his lowest or when his son was literally dying , was just proof that Disney Lucasfilm didn’t care about him as a character or his story. Anakin’s redemption was saving his son, yet for some reason he just didn’t give a shit about him. There is not even a reason given as to why he didn’t show up.  

Anakin does not appear before his grandson in his turning point. It should have been Anakin who met with Ben, not Han. No one knows more about Palpatine and the dark side than Anakin and revealing the truth could have destroyed the dark side’s hold over his grandson and brought him back to the light and unlike Harrison, Hayden actually wanted to be there. We needed the one moment between Anakin and his grandson. All they did with Han was make little to no sense and just repeat lines from TFA. Harrison is clearly there to collect that sweet Disney money lol he doesn’t like Star Wars or Han Solo, he returned to have Han killed off. Hayden Christensen, however loved Star Wars despite the hate that was directed towards him. He wanted to return to play Anakin one last time. and the perfect way for him to return and to guide his grandson back to the light was Anakin. Anakin knows more than anyone what the dark side can do and what Palpatine is capable of and how much pain he has inflicted. Kylo has always admired Vader, and Anakin can show the truth of how he was manipulated into betraying everything he loved and why the dark side is not the path he should be taking.  I really hate to toot my own horn, but I wrote out a scene where Anakin’s force ghost visits his grandson and helped along his redemption.  “I never wanted you to repeat my mistakes. That pull to the light you were feeling was always me. I wanted you to be better than I was, who I could have been” and showing Ben his memories and what he had to go through. His life as a slave, meeting Padme, meeting Obi-Wan, becoming a Jedi, losing his mother, Order 66, losing Padme and being saved by Luke and finally destroying Palpatine(lol but not really). And telling Ben “Let the light in. You still have a chance, no one is ever really gone“  Ben would then tell his grandfather “I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.” Anakin puts his hand on his grandson and says “this time we’ll do it together.”

Anakin does not play a role in the defeat of the monster who destroyed his life. Anakin’s redemption, victory and the fulfillment of the Chosen One Prophecy  is now meaningless. He doesn’t even return to face Palpatine or to even power up Ben and Rey.  When Rey says "be with me" in the final fight. What should've happened is the force hears her pleas for help and sends Anakin to confront Sidious. Just imagine Palpatine:It cannot be....Lord Vader? Anakin:That name no longer has any meaning for me No, I am Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Master and the chosen one. Palpatine:So be it, "Jedi" Anakin with the help of Luke, Leia, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Yoda help Ben rise and empower Ben and Rey. Rey and Ben rise. Ben with his Grandfather’s lightsaber and Rey with Leia’s lightsaber deflecting Palpatine’s Lightning Palpatine"I AM ALL THE SITH! Rey and Ben:And we are the Skywalkers And together they deflect it back at Sidious. Once and for all, Anakin fulfills the prophecy, while not doing it directly, he guided his grandson and Rey and together they destroy the SIth and brings balance to the force. Then Anakin brings back Rey, and bids farewell to his grandson and fades in peace knowing that balance has been brought back and the force is in the safe hands of Rey and Ben.

The entire Skywalker Family goes extinct and everything Anakin fought and sacrificed for is completely meaningless

Anakin's Lightsaber is not recognized as his lightsaber, it is recognized as Luke's Lightsaber and Rey's Lightsaber. Luke has a Lightsaber of his own. He even used it for most of his life after the war as a Jedi master, yet it never makes it into the Sequel Trilogy outside of flashbacks. Where is it????? NO SERIOUSLY WHERE THE FUCK IS IT??????? Rey has a lightsaber of her own as well, but for SOME REASON, they needed Rey to have the Skywalker lightsaber and Leia’s Lightsaber throughout the whole movie. Rey cannot be defined on her own. She needs the Skywalker Lightsaber, she needs the falcon, she needs to be related to be Palpatine and she needed to take the Skywalker name in the end. Anakin doesn’t even get to be acknowledged as the master of his own lightsaber.

Rey steals Anakin's legacy as the chosen one. A PALPATINE STEALS THE SKYWALKER PROPHECY

Anakin’s Lightsaber was buried on Tatooine. Make all the “I don’t like sand” jokes you want. But this is like burying a possession of a freed slave in the remains of a slave plantation. Anakin and Shmi were slaves on this planet, his mother was brutally tortured and murdered, his step-brother and sister and Luke’s aunt and uncle were brutally murdered and his daughter was a Hutt’s sex slave. This is the absolute last place he’d ever want his Lightsaber to be buried. Every Skywalker and Solo hated Tatooine. Anakin wanted to escape a life of slavery and see the stars. Luke looks at that double sunset, longing to escape his mundane life, wanting to travel the galaxy to fight the good fight. Rey looks at the double sunset because it's supposed to pander to the OT fans. Bury Anakin’s Lightsaber in his wife’s mausoleum and his spirit would be at peace. But oh no, we can’t have that, the money needs it’s OT nostalgia and we can’t legitimize the prequels because this movie was made by a prequel hating asshole.  I don’t understand why Luke’s Green Lightsaber was never used again. Could’ve been given to Finn and when he’s done, Rey helps him build a Lightsaber of his own. Then Rey can bury Luke, Leia, and Anakin’s Lightsabers in Padme’s mausoleum with Rey, Finn and Ben looking on as the force ghosts of Anakin, Luke and Leia looks on them in peace and it would be a fitting way to end the Skywalker Saga.

Anakin does not appear as a force ghost. He doesn’t see his grandson. He doesn’t see Rey. He doesn’t appear with Luke and Leia at the end of the movie. It’s like JJ Abrams has some sort of vendetta against the Prequels. This is what happens when an OT purist is given power.

Ben Solo dies and is not given a chance to earn his redemption and thus the Skywalker family dies out. He did terrible things as Kylo Ren, but if you want him to redeem himself, actually give him a redemption arc. When he feels his mother die, let him truly feel remorse for his actions Let him see the force ghosts of Luke and Anakin. They set him on the path to make things right. Ben and Rey stop Palpatine together, they kiss and Ben goes on a path of atonement. Ben gets in the falcon and takes Leia’s lightsaber and goes to every known First Order base with the intention of righting his wrongs and making things right. When he returns to Rey, they go to Naboo to place Anakin, Luke and Leia’s Lightsaber’s in Padme’s mausoleum and it ends with Rey and Ben holding hands as the Skywalker family looks on proud and happily that the future is in good hands. Like....Anakin, Leia and Luke would’ve wanted their family to live on and wanted Ben to live. It isn’t rocket science, Anakin would’ve wanted Ben to be given the chance he wasn’t given to redeem himself and live to tell the tale.

Bringing back Palpatine back destroyed Anakin’s entire arc. I don’t care if it happened in Legends. It was fucking stupid then and it was stupid now. The impact of Order 66? The Sequel Trilogy ruined it. I hate how the Sequel Trilogy really shat on this moment. Order 66 was a tragedy for the Clones, Jedi, Separatists, Mandalorians, Night Sisiters and even Maul. Everyone lost except Sidious. When Darth Vader threw him over the railing he was avenging basically everyone. But the Sequel Trilogy rewrites that moment and makes it redundant. In my book, the series timeline ends at the Mandalorian. The Prophecy of The Chosen One? It’s no longer about Anakin. He is no longer the one to destroy The Sith and to bring Balance to the Force. His fall and redemption? It’s now pointless, Palpatine’s clone body was the one that got destroyed, not Palpatine himself and he returned and built up the Empire stronger than ever. Anakin saving Luke and finally killing Palpatine was beautiful. Something that really makes Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker saving Luke beautiful in my mind is actually Anakin/Vader’s perspective.  Qui-Gon was killed, his mother died a senseless death that he couldn't prevent, the Jedi Council was always wary of him and  never took him seriously, Padme spurned him after he became Vader -- which he only did to protect her from dying -- and died anyway, his best friend hacked off all his limbs and left him to burn to death and Sidious manipulated and lied to him from the time he was a kid, only wanted him for his force powers to use as a glorified hitman and openly contemplated replacing him constantly after he lost his duel to Kenobi on Mustafar and was maimed. The dude either lost or was (in his mind) betrayed by basically everyone he ever knew and cared about, except his son, who even to the end never lost faith in him. He was beaten and helpless and Luke had just severed his hand. Sidious then goaded Luke to finish Vader off and become his new apprentice, but Luke refused to turn on his father. The minute he realized Luke was the only person who hadn't betrayed, used, abandoned or left him was the minute Vader died and Anakin returned. This, in a nut shell, is the story of Star Wars. It is the story of a child from Tattooine who was finally able to save someone he loved.  Anakin has been manipulated by Palpatine since the moment he became a Jedi. Palpatine put visions of Padme’s death in his head until it was a reality. He went to the dark side to save his wife and children. He manipulated him into destroying the Jedi. He turned Anakin into Darth Vader and used Darth Vader as his enforcer. Until a moment of hope. His children lived. He thought all was lost until his son believed in him. In his final moments, his life, he saved his son and fulfilled the prophecy. Darth Vader is the ultimate villain deconstruction. He started out as a faceless monster to be defeated, a demon to be slain so peace would be restored. But Luke managed to look beneath the mask of intimidation and saw his father for what he truly was; a broken man who had been a slave his whole life and had lost all hope of redeeming himself. In the end Luke brought Anakin Skywalker back not because he convinced Vader to love him, because Anakin loved Luke since the moment he knew he would be born and never stopped loving him. And the decision to reveal that Palpatine didn’t really die and manipulated his grandson to kill Luke, that honestly cheapens Anakin’s arc. Just think with how he was brought back. They didn’t have an explanation. He is just there in the opening crawl. We didn’t hear his message in the movie, we heard it in fucking fortnite. And Poe’s line. “Somehow, Palpatine has returned” plays like a line from some kind of parody to Hollywood franchises. It’s actually... insulting. Like they are basically slapping us with “this is happening, we don’t have an explanation, just watch the damn movie and get us paid” without even the decency of trying to hide it. That line didn’t have to be in there. It revealed nothing, it provided no character development... it was literally just there to admit that the film really is as bad as you think. And of course, it’s something we HAVE to read in a book to figure out. If it’s not in your fucking movie, don’t fucking bother having it. Bringing back Palpatine made the first 6 movies entirely pointless. Palpatine outliving Anakin, Obi-Wan, Padme, Han Luke and Leia is the ultimate desecration of Star Wars. “it was always the plan to bring Palpatine back” and that is the problem. Its actually amazing how little the folks at Lucasfilm, Bad Reboot and Disney “get” Star Wars. Having the ultimate bad guy of the first 6 films live to see Episode 9 when the heroes who supposedly defeated him are long dead. It literally destroys the core mythology of the Star Wars universe and makes the selfless choices our characters made unrewarding. That’s just depressing. Their sacrifices and triumphs are ultimately undermined, devalued and utterly pointless. Moral of the story, nothing you did mattered, let the new generation clean up your mess because the money says so. And making Rey Palpatine’s granddaughter, killing EVERY LIVING Skywalker and having a Palpatine steal the legacy of the Skywalkers is desecration of Star Wars. Rey isn’t related to the Skywalkers it’s so creepy that she stole everything from them. She stole the falcon, she stole Luke’s lightsaber, she stole their family name. She stole Anakin and Luke’s ultimate victory over Palpatine. Their legacy. Palpatine won…..This is disgusting. The Skywalkers all dying and Rey taking the name is an exact summation of this trilogy. Tearing down all the old heroes and everything they did just for the new ones to do the same exact thing. Just to prop Rey up? You CAN build up new characters without tearing down the old characters and their legacy. Everything in this trilogy was done to break down and humiliate the characters we cared about and imitate something that was done in the past and has no substance. 

Rey didn’t need to be a Palpatine or take the Skywalker name. This isn’t me hating on Rey. Rey can be a great character by standing on her own. Rey being related to NO ONE was powerful and shows us that even someone who came from Jakku can be a powerful Jedi. She doesn’t earn anything on her own. She downloaded all of Kylo’s abilities. She took the Falcon, she made Chewbacca her personal uber, she took BB-8 from Poe and buried Anakin and Leia’s lightsaber on the literal symbolic oppression of the Skywalker family instead of something peaceful like Naboo or Ach-To. She has her own Lightsaber, but never uses it. Rey being a Palpatine and taking the Skywalker name undoes the beautiful story the revelation TLJ had does. She didn’t need to be a Palpatine and she didn’t need to take the Skywalker name or even their relics.  Rey Nobody works. Here’s why. Rey’s story is her own, it is not her parents, it is not about where she came from, it’s about where she is going, and who she decides to become. Maz Kanata said “The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is in front of you.” Rey in the TFA trailers said “I’m no one” Rey never thought or wanted her parents to be important in TFA, she was literally going to pass up adventure and being important to stay on Jakku because what she wanted was her family to finally come home. She didn't want to be important or wanted her parents to be important. The audience wanted that. Any more lingering discussion of the possibility of Rey’s parents being ‘somebody’ only is distracting you from the actually beautiful story that is being told. Rey is a story of a girl who raised herself, who held onto hope for people who didn’t deserve it, she is a story of how light can be born from darkness, and Rey is story of someone who was scared of her own truth—but then finally faced it. Rey being a Nobody is the story I was skeptical of at first, but grew to love, the story that gives me more hope than any Rey Skywalker or Rey Solo story ever would. Rey calling herself "Rey Skywalker" was so forced and unnecessary because all the whiny pissants did not like that a girl was skilled and powerful in her own right and because Rey did not have a good relationship with Luke in the first place. JJ was so set in just making Rey a Luke clone that it just undoes character development. If Rey had to take a name, Solo or Organa would make the most sense since she actually had a relationship with Han, Leia and Ben. Say what you want about how RIan Johnson handled Rey in TLJ. At least he treated Rey like her own person, with her own journey, and her own desires and fears, rather than consigning her to be a vessel for OT nostalgia. And at least he allowed her to actually have a new outfit and new hair style. At least he let her change. Like him or not, Rian Johnson treated Rey with more respect and identity than JJ Abrams ever did. It means more than making her related to anyone because Rey was every lonely girl who wanted to be a part of something but didn't feel like they belonged. Every woman who learned to make her way in the world alone. Every person who clung to hope when they had nothing left. She is so many things to so many people. Rey Nobody can be fierce, angry and powerful without it connecting to a man or evil bloodline. She can love, be curious and emotional without being weak. She is a scavenger, a Jedi, and one half of a powerful Dyad. She is Rey of Jakku and that's all we needed. Rey calling herself a Skywalker denied her every last inch of who she was. Her character arc was ruined to please men that thought her power needed to be connected to a man for it to make sense. All we needed her arc to be was Rey accepting that she needs to be her own hero and loving herself for who she is, rather than who she wanted her hypothetical parents to be. And honestly Rey in TROS was a huge disappointment. Her entire character arc was regressed, she's back to wearing the buns and dressed all in white and sticks to the glorification of the Jedi. It's like everything she learned in the last movie never happened. And honestly her character in TROS  is what men think a "strong female character" is She fights, but they don’t have to deal with her processing internal pain. She loves, but they don’t have to deal with her fully exploring her desires. She’s a “badass,” & for them that is enough. When I say "A Palpatine is left and steals the legacy of the Skywalkers" I am not suggesting she doesn't deserve the title. I am saying that essentially, Palpatine won. Anakin, Padme, Luke, Han, Leia and Ben are all dead. Leia died for nothing. Leia deserved to see her son come home, and to see the end of the monster who ruined her family. She didn’t deserve to feel her child die. The entire line of the family is now extinct. The wiki even says "the extinction of the family name" what kind of depressing garbage is this? JJ Abrams ended the entire Skywalker saga on Palpatine successfully using love to manipulate, corrupt, hurt or kill every single Skywalker across three generations, ultimately resulting in the total eradication of the Skywalker, Solo and Amidala bloodlines, whilst Palpatine's heir lives on and claims the Skywalker name and legacy. Rey calling herself "Rey Skywalker" was patronizing and insulting and demeans what Rey's journey meant in the first two movies to everyone who loved her. Rey coming from Jakku and nothing but rising up as a heroic Jedi means more than "you have his power...you are a Palpatine" or "Rey Rey Skywalker" ever will. Women Of The Galaxy author Amy Ratcliffe says it best. “Even beyond the trappings of the Star Wars saga — the First Order, the Resistance, the Force — Rey’s story is inspiring, familiar, and timeless. Just because you come from nothing doesn’t mean you’re not part of the story. You’re not no one, because anybody can save the galaxy. Anybody.“

If anyone still cannot understand my problem with bringing back Palpatine and why I find it narratively offensive. Just imagine this. What if Harry discovered that Dumbledore was wrong and Voldemort had far more than 7 horcruxes? Ashamed and afraid, he hides Ginny and the Potter children among the muggles. A defeated Ron returns to the burrow, while Hermione spends her days searching for Horcruxes. Years later, a 17 year old, Rachel Marvela Riddle, begins discovering her new powers, despite never receiving her Hogwart’s letter. Her magic is incredibly strong, but she is everything Tom was not. With the help of some friends, she tracks down the remaining Horcruxes and finally destroys the true Voldemort, for good and realsies this time! Also she starts calling herself the Girl Who Lived. This is the plot of Disney’s Star Wars Sequel Trilogy.. What if Harry didn’t actually destroy Voldemort? What if The One Ring survived Mt. Doom? Interesting concepts, but they would devalue everything that came before. The entire point of the Sequel Trilogy is disregarding generations of storytelling because no one behind this trilogy had any original or creative stories to tell. This is how Star Wars dies, with uncreativity and greed.

Anakin Skywalker’s story and family was destroyed, belittled, insulted and stolen by a Palpatine. Hell, even from a certain point of view PALPATINE WON! AGAIN!