#rewatching rotj made me emotional okay

[hmura-hmara]

“You were right. You were right about me. Tell your sister…you were right.”

[qqueenofhades]

so…now that we all know what you DISLIKE about star wars (and 400% fairly so, you have my full support here)…

what drew you into the universe, what keeps you around?

favorite characters, ships (OTPs or actual spaceships lol), overall themes, do you have a favorite random weird creature or robot that you adore? whatever you wanna talk about!

go off honey (again, but supportively 💖💖💖)

tax paid: the very nerdy star wars punk vest i made and the even nerdier matching vest i made for starsky

Lmaooo, entirely valid. You were like "star wars?" and I was like the drunk person at the bar who can't stop shouting about how much their ex sucks. But now that I have gotten all that off my chest, let's talk about why I love it (since if I didn't love it, I wouldn't have such strong opinions). Basically my feelings on the OG SW trilogy are similar to my feelings on the OG LOTR trilogy, as that tumblr post floating around somewhere put it: sure, they have flaws, but also, they're perfect. I have a complicated relationship with the prequels, as do we all, since George Lucas cannot write dialogue or direct actors to save his life (stick to what you're good at, George, hire other people to do the rest), but even they have their moments. Like. Hit me with that "Across the Stars" love theme, John Williams. Gahh. Just like that.

Because... Star Wars wasn't actually this omnipresent corporate global entertainment monolith when it started out. It was a dorky low-budget indie sci-fi film in the 1970s which everyone thought was going to bomb. But it told a simple and compelling story in an interesting way, everyone agrees that ESB is one of the best films/sequels ever made, and then ROTJ gave it a happy ending while it was still okay to do that. My main thematic gripe with the Disney trilogy (I will try to keep those to a minimum, lol, but I have to bring it up to compare) is that it very clearly fell into the "actual happy endings are naive and unrealistic and a cynical postmodern audience won't accept anything less than things being Bad" trap that, yet again, we have GOT to thank for. It obviously existed to some degree before that, but GOT blew it up to huge levels, where the only valid situation or character is that which is Grimdark and Depressing. Which, in my view, misses the heart and soul of what SW is all about??

Like. ESB is genuinely dark. ANH was this fun plucky little sci-fi film where the scrappy good guys won the day against the Nazi stand-ins, as they were supposed to, and then ESB comes along (speaking of John Williams, let us all chant together, DUH DUH DUH DUHDUHDUH DUHDUHDUH, DUH DUH DUH DUHHHH DUHHH DUHHH DUHHHH) and things go... wrong. Leia and Han are on the run for most of the movie, then get captured and tortured by the Empire and and betrayed (however unwillingly) by Lando. The Rebellion is attacked on Hoth (I tell you, those fuckin AT-AT walkers were SCARY when you see it as a young kid for the first time), and forced into hiding. Luke loses his hand, doubts Obi-Wan and Yoda and realizes that his mentors are fallible, makes dumb mistakes, and of course gets hit with The Most Famous Line In Movie History. But it's also just adrenaline and excitement. THE ASTEROID FIELD! THE HAN-LEIA BANTER! THE FIRST LUKE-VADER DUEL! THE FACT THAT YOU HEAR TWO FRICKING NOTES OF THE IMPERIAL MARCH AND YOU'RE JUST LIKE OH YEAH OH YEAH OH YEAHHHH!

But also then... Return of the Jedi. It gets shat upon for the Ewoks and reusing the Death Star as the Big Bad and being supposedly cheesy and not as Thematically Dark as ESB. Which is all kinda silly, in my opinion, but also, can we talk about Luke Skywalker's character arc and how he chooses possibly the most radical compassion ever demonstrated by a hero in an action movie, let alone a space opera. He insists that Anakin Skywalker is still in there somewhere and puts his own neck on the line to prove it. Luke doesn't save the galaxy by being a Badass Jedi. He saves it by throwing away his lightsaber and saying "I will not fight you, Father." He saves it by trusting that even in the depths of darkness, Anakin can come back from the charred ruins of Darth Vader and finally do what he was supposed to do all along. He can end Palpatine for good and all (we don't talk about "Somehow Palpatine has returned" because it's nonsense, obviously). Anakin can avenge the Jedi and what was done to him and all the lies he believed and the pain he wreaked on the galaxy, even then. It's not too late. It's not too late. Like. I don't care if this is Lightweight or Childish or whatever. It makes me CRY every time I watch it. Especially the moment where Luke takes off Anakin’s helmet and sees how ruined he actually is under there, and yet the downfall and death of the trilogy’s chief villain is not triumphant at all but instead utterly heartbreaking. “You were right about me Luke... tell your sister... you were right.”

Excuse me, I need to just /CRIES INTENSELY/

Luke won't be tempted to the dark side for his own sake, but Leia's ("If you will not join me, then perhaps she will"). I likewise hold firmly that Anakin/Vader is one of the best movie villains/antiheroes of all time and likewise have many feelings and Strong Opinions about his arc, prequel writing clumsiness and eye-rollingly tepid love story aside. (See: he and Obi-Wan were deeply in love and in a way they still are, don't @ me. I have no problems with Padme and obviously stan Natalie Portman at all times, but Anakin and Obi-Wan’s relationship is the real love story, the heart of the prequels, and in some ways even the subsequent movies, the end.) And “so this is how democracy dies, with thunderous applause” is... raw af as a line. For being in a Star Wars prequel movie. What?? (Also, the Revenge of the Sith novelization had no business being as good as it was. If only that dude had also written the movie.)

Anyway, my point is: the OG trilogy had plenty of moments of staggering emotional weight and where things genuinely sucked for the good guys and the outcome wasn’t entirely clear. The difference is that it didn’t choose to dwell on them, and it allowed for a transformative fictional space where a happy ending, fiercely fought for and squarely earned, was the right outcome. We didn’t need to go back thirty years later and make everything suck for fear that a cynical modern audience couldn’t connect with it otherwise. (Like I said, we didn’t need the new movies at all, but Disney heard that Cha-Ching of the Almighty Dollar). Star Wars was sci-fi, sure, but it also had the fantasy elements that allowed a happy ending to be the right choice for what we saw the characters go through and the philosophy that carried us through the original trilogy.

Likewise it’s just... Peak as far as dynamics go. C-3PO the fussy metal butler who worries about Everything and R2-D2 who is the droid embodiment of YOLO? Flawless. Sassy scruffy space pirate and badass politician warrior princess bicker constantly, butt heads, drive each other crazy, and then fall in love? Iconic. (And has shaped my ship tastes for... all of eternity, oops.) The above-discussed transformation of Luke Skywalker, whiny ordinary teenage kid, to the truly great man who fulfills what Obi-Wan, Yoda, AND the rest of the entire Jedi order couldn’t manage to do, because of their own flaws and blind spots and black-and-white moral views that didn’t know what to do with a man who loved as passionately as Anakin Skywalker, for better or for worse? The guy who managed to save the galaxy with love? STAN.

So... what? The Disney trilogy decides to retcon all that, throw everything that they’ve fought for out the window, make Han, Leia, and Luke miserable and rejecting the roles they grew into in the original trilogy, and die without ever really reuniting or seeing each other again as a trio? The underlying message was that “these happy endings aren’t satisfactory/realistic/sophisticated enough” and idk, maybe it’s just the shitshow of the last few years, but I’d like to see some entertainment that had the cojones to tell me that despite all the darkness and despair, maybe there’s a chance for hope. (”Rebellions are built on hope,” thank you Only Valid New Star Wars Movie Rogue One.) And Rogue One worked so well, despite being utterly GUTTING as all the heroes died one by one, because we knew what was coming next (A New Hope) and that their sacrifice was going to be worth it. I don’t care if that’s “realistic” or not. As I’ve said before, that’s what stories are for, and if I only wanted things that were Real Life, I would only read the news. Besides, the idea that happy endings never happen in reality is equally bullshit. We as a culture need to accept that more, instead of finding reasons to tear everything down.

So just... yes. The original trilogy might have flaws, but also, it’s perfect. And do I want to rewatch it all now? Kinda.

(Anyway. I warned you this was gonna be long. Oh look, it’s long, and I’m sure there is even more I could say, but still. Ahem.)

sleepover weekend asks

[gffa]

THIS IS GOING TO BE A JOURNEY and it may not be what you were looking for, but I hope that it can explain how I came around on TLJ and why I’m sitting where I am, why I’ve made peace with it and even come to like aspects of it.  It’s going to seem pretty negative at first and it’s not going to work for everyone (spoiler alert: I think the supplementary canon is pretty invaluable for turning someone around), but I’ll lay out how I got to a pretty good place with TLJ! Because, looking back on it, I think what I really needed to do wasn’t to sweep aside my negative feelings, but instead to work through them.  This isn’t a post for people who loved TLJ and want a celebratory post about it!  It’s also not a post for people who hated it and want to read criticisms of it (though, both those things are in here!).  It’s a post for those who are struggling with how to figure out how to feel about it and want to like it a little more.  (Or anyone who just wants to rubberneck at this rather long navel-gazing post!  XD) LET ME START WITH THIS:  I fully recognize that my method and my views and my way of coming around on TLJ aren’t going to be for everyone and that’s okay. We all have our different views of the movie and we all have our preferences/lines in the sand drawn at our own personal points.  If you read what I have to say and don’t come out any more convinced than you were before, that’s okay, too! LET ME FOLLOW IT UP WITH THIS:  My feelings for TLJ are complicated, in that there are aspects of it that I really enjoy, but I came around to them in a very roundabout way and that may not work for everyone.  While there are things I really love about the movie now, there are also things that I think are never going to work for me.  In a nutshell:  The Luke & Rey storyline is largely the only one that really works for me.  The Kylo stuff actually hangs together reasonably coherently for me, I’m just not sure what to do with it until IX comes out.

The Finn & Rose stuff has a lot of potential that I like, but it fails to follow through on that potential.  As @thewillowbends has noted many times (and she’s very right about this, imo) HOW do you have a storyline about what war does to people by the rich and powerful to the oppressed, HOW do you have a storyline that contains child slaves in it, AND NOT CONNECT IT TO FINN’S STORY AS A CHILD SOLDIER IN THE FIRST ORDER? The Poe & Holdo stuff has potential and hangs together well on a thematic level, as the three stories are about cementing characters into their roles and making sure they are committed to being on these paths, as well as the movie has the theme running through it of defying expectations (yet this still locks them into giving those expectations just as much importance, because that’s the framework you’re still working it) and that it’s about men being called out by women, that this is how the Poe and Holdo thing defies what we expect.  Yes, I can agree with all of that!  I can agree that Holdo doesn’t owe him an explanation, women don’t owe men shit, in that sense!  It works on a thematic level, but then I look at it from a character level and it just absolutely falls apart for me.  W H Y did Holdo not sense the mutiny brewing under her nose, W H Y not just tell us a good reason for not saying anything about their plan?  There’s no in universe answer that has satisfied me on that yet. AND THEN THE ONE THING THE MOVIE MAY NEVER BE ABLE TO FIX:  Rian Johnson makes no bones about how this was a movie about defying expectations, that Rey’s story in the cave was about the hardest thing for her to hear, it was a movie about Luke Skywalker not being what we thought we wanted from the story.  And I can eventually come around on the Luke part of that story, because rewatching the OT has actually helped me a lot to see where much of his characterization has been stemming from!  But we’ll get to that later.  Right now, what this movie can probably never fix is that, yeah, okay, you’re defying expectations, that’s the story you wanted to tell and maybe there’s something to that whole thing.  But it also means that I’m never going to get Mark Hamill as a badass Jedi Master in all his glory, not for more than about two minutes. Instead, I’m going to be left with the feeling of how bitterness ate at him for at least those six years, how he died for this, and it’s never going to reach the epic heights of what the old Legends EU set up for him.  Whether it’s a better story or not, that depends on what each of us gets out of it, but my heart wanted Luke Skywalker being badass the whole way through a movie and getting to see him in a lightsaber fight that actually put his incredible skills to use, to see that strength in the Force on display in movies that could do the special effects justice.  I’m never going to get that with Mark Hamill and I’m never going to be satisfied on some level for it.  All the good (if you think they’re good) reasons in the world are never going to be able to fill that in for me. AND THE BIGGER PROBLEM WITH THE OVERALL SEQUELS:  I had to come home and Google what the fuck the First Order even was after TFA.  I have no idea what the state of the galaxy is like during TLJ and boy did the movie work to make sure it didn’t feel connected to anything that came before on a worldbuilding level.  Sure, you have Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa and the Millennium Falcon and lightsabers!  But that’s about it.  There were no recognizable alien races.  There are almost no recognizable planets.  There is a very, very obvious lack of knowing the backstory and I don’t know if IX can stick the landing of what is very obviously a WIP.  George Lucas managed it, that the prequels evolved as he wrote them/worked on them, but I think one of his strengths is that he’s really good at building a bigger world like that.  Can a George Lucas-less film trilogy stick the landing without him?  I’m willing to work with them, but I’m not sure JJ Abrams (a guy known for the Alias ending and that LOST was his baby as well, even if he wasn’t as involved as later, and the Star Trek movies) is the guy who can achieve that. WHERE THIS ENDS US UP AT:  Okay, so those are my big criticisms with the movie.  For me, it helps to understand where my dissatisfaction is coming from, that pinning it down and laying it out in clearly expressed words so that I completely and totally grok my problems with the movie, that lets me move on to, well, okay, what do I like, what potential good stuff is here. This is a pretty high up view of my problems with TLJ, of course, I’m skimming over a lot of the more detail-oriented problems (like how Holdo’s kamikaze hyperspace attack basically breaks Star Wars, because WHY HAS NO ONE DONE THAT BEFORE?, THERE IS NO REASON THAT ANYONE HAS COME UP WITH THAT SATISFIES THAT QUESTION FOR ME, but that’s not really a TLJ problem, that’s a “this was always there, just that no one really thought about it and assumed it wasn’t possible” problem), as I want to keep this post under 3k words, but that lays out the framework.  Okay, so where did I go from here? SOME WAYS I STARTED TO COME AROUND A BIT: → I started getting into the supplementary material.  I watched the Battlefront II game like a movie and, oh, hey, they’re doing the work of connecting the Empire to the First Order!  And, whoa, that was the single best Luke Skywalker story post-ROTJ that we’ve gotten yet!  I read Legends of Luke Skywalker and that gave me a lot of Luke feelings, which eased up my feeling stung about how the majority of the screentime he got was him mired in depression and blaming the Jedi for the problems. → I started reading interviews with Rian Johnson.  Now, this is a mixed bag at times, but there are some things that he explicitly explains that really worked for me, such as:  “[Luke]’s taken the weight of the world on his shoulders, taken himself out of the equation, so that the Jedi can die out, so that light can rise from a worthier source. So, in his own way, similar to Kylo, he’s trying to disconnect, he’s trying to throw away the past, he’s saying 'Let’s kill religion.  It’s the thing that’s messing us up, thing thing right here, let’s kill it.’ And the truth is, it’s a personal failure.  It’s not religion[’s fault], it’s his own human nature that’s betrayed him.” This puts A LOT into context       → It highlights that Luke was in a really bad place mentally and I’m here for characters who are speaking out of being in bad mental/emotional places!       → It highlights that Luke’s words about how it was time for the Jedi to end, how they were responsible for the creation of Vader and the rise of the Empire, how they were fucked up, how they weren’t needed in the galaxy, were all explicitly set up to be knocked down!  He literally goes out to face down the entire First Order with his laser sword!  Rian Johnson explicitly states what happened was a personal failing, not the religion/Jedi’s failing!       → It took me a long time and a lot of going back over Luke’s scenes from the OT to really connect them to how they were being continued on with TLJ and focusing on him as coming from a bad mental health place made me ready to hear that. → I read the novelizations, which are largely pretty standard retellings, but they do contain a lot of the characters’ thoughts and confirmation of some details that bugged me.  Like, it’s confirmed that Rey’s abilities with the lightsaber are based on the Force bond that Snoke gave her to Kylo, that she’s using his memories as a way to fight. This also allowed me to take a better look at Rose Tico’s character and give better context to Finn.  There’s a scene in one of them (I can’t remember if it’s the adult or jr novelization?) where it’s pretty clear that Finn wasn’t a failure at being a Stormtrooper, but that he was mopping decks because they couldn’t squash the compassion and goodness out of him, to do the jobs they were tasking him with.  He had really high scores in the rankings, but he just couldn’t follow through on the bad shit, so he was being punished.  That kind of thought being given to Finn, even if only for a moment, really helped me! Rose also gets more exploration and her reactions as coming from a place of grief are much easier for me to see.  Her anger at Finn’s desertion attempt because Paige gave her life for it, her latching onto him because she has this empty place in her because of Paige’s death, her readiness to FIGHT EVERYTHING IN HER WAY, were all really charming to me! → During this, I’m also reading the supplementary material to get me more emotionally invested in the characters.  Both the Phasma and Cobalt Squadron books really charmed the hell out of me and they helped fill in the world for me! WHERE I STAND AT THAT POINT: Well, I still have issues with TLJ, but it’s starting to make more sense to me.  I still think some things are bullshit about it or just leave me feeling entirely cold, I think a lot of the backlash against the criticism for the movie ignores that there are a lot of people with really good points, instead of it being just assholes who are angry that women and people of color are getting all up in their Star Wars.  (Don’t get me wrong, that’s a very real problem with Star Wars fans, but it’s not all of the TLJ criticism.) But I guess I’m warming up to it. And I realized that I needed to drop a certain mindset from the movie:  It is not revolutionary or breaking new ground or a big, shocking thing. The movie does kind of pride itself on defying expectations, but that still means it’s just as married to using those expectations as a framework for the story.  For example:  Rian Johnson talked about how the cave scene was about telling Rey the hardest thing she could hear, rather than what would be the satisfying answer or whatever.  Okay, but that still uses the question of, “What would the audience find satisfying?” as the foundation of how that scene was written, rather than something that would feel organic to the character’s actual development and the world around her.  (In fairness, the whole “defies expectations” thing is more about reviewers and defenders on YouTube than it’s something directly from RJ himself, so I’m not putting this on him as much as I am on the fandom-in-general.) So I dropped the whole idea that TLJ was revolutionary or different or breaking new ground. “Let the past die.  Kill it if you have to.” KYLO REN IS NOT RIGHT ABOUT THIS.  And Rian Johnson explicitly says so.  He says that you shouldn’t be stuck in the past, but that you build on it and move forward.  And, when I looked at TLJ in that light, I suddenly liked it a lot more. FOR EXAMPLE:  That cave scene.  You know why it works for me?  I explain more fully here, but basically it really works (even RJ’s comment about what would be the hardest thing for her to hear works with this) as the time honored Jedi tradition of going into a cave full of the Force and facing your greatest fears that linger inside yourself. Luke did it on Dagobah.  The Jedi younglings all did it on Ilum.  Ezra did it in the Jedi Temple on Lothal.  And now Rey does it on Ahch-To. If that scene wasn’t about revealing some external truth, but instead some internal truth about what she was carrying around with her?  HELL YEAH I’M HERE FOR THAT, THAT’S WHAT A JEDI NEEDS TO DO TO BECOME A JEDI. And if I could turn around on that aspect, maybe there were other things I could turn around on, too? WHICH BRINGS US TO THE LUKE SKYWALKER QUESTION:  A big crux of a lot of people’s dislike of TLJ is OMG LUKE SKYWALKER WOULD NEVER.  And that was absolutely how I felt for a long time! But now I’m kind of wondering:  Am I sure about that? Because I’ve been doing some meta about Luke Skywalker and I’ve been finding it to fit with the things the character has always struggled with.  As much as we want Luke Skywalker to be a pure cinnamon roll who is nothing but sweetness and light, that’s not actually who he is.  (And let me be clear that this is not a criticism leveled at Luke or even a “oh, you can only like him if he’s ~flawed~, otherwise you’re not seeing the ~truth~”, but instead aimed at showing why Luke Skywalker is incredible as a person and as a character, as I see him!) It’s easy to remember that Luke threw away his lightsaber and refused to fight, that he said, “I am a Jedi.  Like my father before me.”  But you know what came right before that?  Sidious taunting him with how he feels the hate and anger flowing through Luke, as he threatens his friends down on Endor.  We see it, too:

He is SO ANGRY here, even at this late in the game.  He’s spent years working on himself and controlling those feelings and he STILL struggles with it, even knowing that there’s good in his father. Sidious’ taunt wouldn’t rile Luke up if there was nothing in him that was there to rile up. And it’s present all along the way, Luke’s struggle with fear and anger.  He’s angry after ANH when all the slaves on Cymoon 1 are killed, blaming himself for Vader killing them.  He has fear and doubt swirling around in him, because the cave on Dagobah isn’t showing us an external threat, but an internal one.  All that he faces there is what he brought with him.  He runs off from Dagobah before he’s ready to face Vader, who says he can feel the fear Luke is at least learning to control--but it’s clearly still there.  And when Luke cannot deny the connection to Vader, when he has to yield some part of himself to the truth that Darth Vader is is father, he wants to die.  Mark Hamill talks about how Luke let go from Cloud City, “like committing suicide”. Luke is an incredible, phenomenal person, but a big part of that is because of the struggles he faces to overcome his anger and fear, that he does it--not that he never felt them in the first place. And the Jedi very much make the point that this is a lifelong journey to keep facing all the dark side stuff inside you.  They make this point in the prequels, they make this point in Rebels, they make this point in TLJ even. So, the idea that he would ignite his saber in a moment of weakness (because, let’s be honest, Ben Solo is not innocent at that point--if someone is willing to MURDER ALL THE OTHER STUDENTS because his uncle realized the darkness in him--and that is how it’s phrased in the novelization--then THAT PERSON IS A DANGER and Luke’s reacting to something that’s there) and then regret it so deeply that he withdraws from everyone for the next six years?  That he would be borderline suicidal while on Ahch-To because the dark things inside him were eating him alive? Yeah, for me that’s a continuation of everything that’s been established about Luke in previous stories. We remember Luke’s insistence that Vader had still had good in him, that he didn’t want to fight him, that he didn’t want to leave him behind on the Death Star.  But it’s easy to forget that Luke also did have moments of anger and violence against Vader, after he taunts Luke and threatens Leia, reading Luke’s thoughts about her.  (God, there was a twitter thread that I’m sure I reblogged that talked about this issue specifically, Luke’s aggression towards Vader in ROTJ, but I cannot find it again.) He believed there was good in his father, but it was still a struggle to put down his weapon. That’s exactly what happened with Ben as well--he knew there was still good in him, but he felt that darkness roiling in Ben so strongly that it was still a struggle to put down his weapon. (Also, this was six years pre-TLJ, so Ben was in his early-to-mid-twenties or so, not a teenager!) And then Luke, who struggles not to take on responsibility for others’ actions, retreats because he goes to a bad mental place, as the dark things that have always been in him (that are in all of us) get the better of him. AFTER ALL OF THAT: All of this may just solidify that you (or anyone else reading this!) are never going to like TLJ and that’s okay!  It’s not going to work for everyone, it’s not going to jive with everyone, some people are going to read those scenes differently.  Also okay!  There’s no hard feelings on my part if someone reads all of this and goes, “That’s not how I saw it.” And I’ll give the caveat that this process took me months, honestly I’m still sorting through my feelings.  I don’t think this is going to suddenly make anyone go OH SHIT YOU’RE RIGHT.  But maybe it might help nudge a few people towards recontextualizing everything in their head--which is the process that I went through and the only way I could go from “WTF WAS THAT?” to “Yeah, okay, that makes sense to me.” Plus, you know, hey, not everyone is going to want to read a bunch of supplementary material to feel better about the movie and there’s a very valid point about how you shouldn’t have to.  I ENTIRELY AGREE ABOUT THIS, btw!  But, at the same time, those supplementary materials exist and I’ve been consuming them and they’ve started drawing connections in ways that really help me. The novelizations and the comics have given extra bits of insight that made it clear they are thinking about the worldbuilding in the wider franchise.  The books and comics set in Canto Bight’s casino have specifically made an effort to include established aliens.  The Star Wars: Battlefront II game’s story has gone to worlds that are familiar (LEIA ON NABOO, bestill my heart, the arcade mode in the Naboo palace where you can have Vader or Leia or Luke wander by the stained glass windows with Padme’s image on them!  MY HEARTTTTTT) and great characterization.  The Propaganda and Aftermath books are doing a lot to start bridging the gap of what happened between VI and VII, helping me see that, yes, they are building this world up and the First Order being the Empire 2.0 actually WORKS for me. I put more things into context of how, for example, it’s only been six years (give or take) since Luke retreated--he spend the other ~25 years doing WHO KNOWS WHAT.  At least some of that time was spent traveling the galaxy in Legends of Luke Skywalker.  Mark Hamill got to voice Luke in a Forces of Destiny short that made me feel better about his connection to the role!  Rewatching the OT and listening to Mark talk about Luke helped me see TLJ as an extension of what was already there. OKAY, HERE’S SOME STUFF I STRAIGHT UP JUST LOVED: A lot of fandom really hates that it wasn’t Anakin showing up to talk to Luke, but it made perfect sense to me that it was Yoda.  In universe, Yoda is the one that Luke spent the most time with, they spent months together on Dagobah and developed a very strong bond.  As much as we love Luke and Anakin’s story, Yoda was actually incredible important to Luke in-story.  AND BOY DID I HAVE FEELINGS about Yoda showing up and smacking Luke in the face literally and metaphorically, that he was like GET BACK IN THE GAME, TRASH FIRE, and “Ahhh, Skywalker, I have missed you.” LUKE SKYPEWALKER.  Oh, my god, Luke Force Skyped himself to death, that is an Extra As Fuck way to go out as ANYTHING, I hope the Force Ghost gang are all proud of him. That fight on Crait was pretty fucking gorgeous.  I wish we’d gotten a longer fight but oh MAN everything we did get was incredible.  Luke sliding under Kylo’s blade in slo-mo was F A N T A S T I C. Also crystal foxes!  I LOVE THEM.  The porgs were really cute but GIMME THOSE CRYSTAL FOXES.  Crait as a planet in general was beautiful. Leia, practically in a coma, so all her thoughts were shoved out of her head and she was acting on instinct, using the Force like that?  HELL YEAH I 100% BELIEVE ANAKIN SKYWALKER’S BIO-DAUGHTER WAS CAPABLE OF BEING THAT EXTRA. Luke blowing up the hut when he exploded in on Rey and Kylo’s Force Skype call, that is an underrated moment of FORCE USING BADASSERY. Luke on Ahch-To, staring out at the binary suns, so far away from where he started and yet all things circle back around in their own way.  His body disappearing, his robe fluttering to the stone floor.  HI THANKS I’M CRYING especially when the novelization hinted that there was a voice waiting to welcome him to the other side. I legit got misty-eyed at Luke and Leia’s reunion.  I wish I could have had an entire movie of them working together, I wanted to see more of Mark and Carrie’s chemistry, but I am going to cling to the hope that, just like Obi-Wan and Anakin, they’ll be together in the Force one day. IN THE END: This is how I came to like at least big parts of this movie.  But I needed to work through those feelings, rather than sweep them aside, so that’s what this post was aimed at, showing how I did that (if in a very generalized, bird’s eye view kind of way). So much of it ultimately revolves around my growing understanding of Luke Skywalker’s character, why I disagree that he’s a pure cinnamon roll too good for this world, but instead that his incredible strength of character and inherent goodness are about overcoming the dark side, not about never being tempted in the first place or making mistakes.  And I see that Luke in the man who found peace and purpose in the end of TLJ, who took a long, hard look at himself and dragged himself back up again, because that’s what good people do. I’ll always wish we could have gotten Mark Hamill to play Luke during the high points of his life, to see that in a Saga movie on the big screen.  But if this is Luke Skywalker’s end, then I understand how he got there and that the ultimate lesson of his life was: The dark side is a part of all of us, it’s in the fear inside of our hearts and minds that we must constantly face.  It can knock us down sometimes, it can make us doubt ourselves and retreat because we think the world will be better without us. But we get up again, we take a look at ourselves, and we re-choose the light all over again.  The world works better when you’re on the side of good and you have a choice about that.  And sometimes it’s going to be a struggle to choose it, but Luke Skywalker showed me that, even when I fall down into a dark hole in my own mind, I can still get up and find peace and purpose in my path going forward.

[maryellencarter]

memed from @camshaft22 , originally an askbox meme but it's short enough that i can just have opinions at all of it rather than waiting to have the free time to get out of the house and answer asks. (i still have at least a few askmeme questions sitting in my inbox from like a month or two ago... :P)

1. do you find force users or non-force users more interesting? -- non-force users by a mile. there could theoretically be exceptions, like if anybody really got deeply into alternate perceptions / interpretations of the force rather than just kind of toeing the jedi party line as established in the movies, but i haven't seen any that really grab me.

2. which character do you want to be most like? -- oh, now there's a hell of a question. both this and the next one, really. see, let's start at the beginning: when i was a very smol tortoise watching a star war, and by smol i mean like eighteen because that's when i first saw a star war... when i was a smol, i wanted to be han solo (not least because he was hot in a very conventionally masculine way, do not underestimate the importance of that to a smol afab tortoise programmed with much body-loathing ;P), but i identified a lot more with chewbacca. i mean, let's be honest, i was not in great psychological shape as a tiny, and this particular oddment is something i'm still very much sorting out, but: from tiny!jt's perspective, at least, han+chewie is a nonromantic primary relationship that gets displaced by the han/leia primary romantic relationship. but it's still (from anything you see onscreen in the ot) primary *to chewie* even after it becomes secondary to han. that kind of nonreciprocal primary relationship, tagging around after someone who would let me express that kind of devotion and not find it creepy even after they inevitably found a "real", romantic relationship that would be more important to them than me, was the best endgame i could imagine for myself, and frankly i felt like it was way too much to hope for within my own species. i may have spent rather a while wishing i was a dog or something, so that it would be acceptable and appropriate for me to want the most important relationship in my life to be nonromantic. tiny!jt was a *mess*. this was way before i got into fandom, so i didn't really work through it at all or write it down anywhere, either.

uh. that got long. continued under the next question.

3. which character are you actually most like? -- so anyway. yeah. to continue. then i found my way into legends (then still the eu but yanno) and the x-wing books. and then there was wes. ^_^ it would be several more years before i even figured out i *had* ptsd, but here was somebody who had ptsd that presented almost exactly like mine but was also stable and functional and not-depressed and in fact actually cheerful. not to mention he was *also* hot and male and most importantly human, but still showed the kind of undemanding loyalty i was aiming towards, and had it accepted.

(which last is partly because wedge is an oblivious noodle, but still. ^_^ honestly that's probably something to analyze when i'm not one-finger typing on my phone: how much of that kind of relationship being a goal for me is just me being wired kind of subby, and how much is the abuse thing where asking for any kind of emotional reciprocation is Wrong and Too Much. :P)

uh. i had a point here somewhere. um. so i wanted to grow up to be wes, but i didn't think that was an attainable goal. i felt sort of more like wedge with the duty and guilt and everything, but wedge is also way more of a leader than i am, so that's a thing. honestly there was a point there where i felt most like cheriss, just kind of... trying to grow up and dealing with a whole bunch of life shit and intermittently wanting to die a lot. ;P

and now apparently i *am* growing up to be wes and i'm still not sure what to do with that, besides writing a lot of fanfic (which is what i am doing). and trying to figure out the whole subby brain thing. and the executive dysfunction thing. and the not wanting leadership positions thing. and still working on the ptsd thing. and the self-esteem thing. there's a lot.

i'm less wedge, though. which is good. less catholic guilt is always nice.

4. what headcanon will you defend to the death? -- er. i'm not really sure i have any of those. as opposed to just canon things i will make sure people remember and acknowledge. maybe the hoth cuddle pile? you will never convince me the rogues on hoth did not sleep in a giant cuddle pile.

5. what planet would you most like to visit? -- i frankly don't know enough about star wars planets to give a shit.

6. what planet would you most like to live on? -- ditto. not taanab, for sure. mini rancors (and possibly 46-hour days if you don't just disdain that as illogical made-up numbers they threw into the planet guide for variety's sake... ;P I have opinions)

7. who do you hope you never meet? -- of the characters? pretty much any of the bad guys, but my first thought is vader.

8. what is one thing you would change about any movie, show, book, etc? -- ahahahahaaaaaaa. just one? i can't pick. can i say fix all the things about tlj that made me go "okay never watching that"? because there were at least four or five just among the spoilers that i heard. like if it had to be just one i'd make it so poe doesn't disregard chain of command, because that's the one that's making it so i can't rewatch tfa *either*, but from everything i hear, that movie was a hot mess. (alternatively, can i just change the fandom so that people stop saying "if you don't love tlj unquestioningly you're a reddit douchebro!"? because i don't want to unfollow roguepod on twitter but unless i block literally everyone *they* follow there's no way for me to keep that particular Hot Take off my dash and it's consistently re-infuriating me. :P)

uh. i have feelings, apparently. ;P

9. have you ever made fanart or fanfic? do you make edits or any other fan content? -- so much fanfic. so much. i counted last night and just the fics i haven't published yet add up to somewhere around 80k words.

10. do you think the jedi were right or wrong? -- i think the jedi were self-important douchenozzles with a habit of being wrong whenever the plot demanded it. is this a reference to something specific they were right or wrong about? i don't think they have the one true view of the force, and i think they're obnoxious about thinking they do, much like many other religions, so there's that.

11. who is the most underrated character? -- new canon, finn. or rose, possibly, not that i've seen her, because see above re hot mess. old canon, hobbie.

12. do you care who rey’s parents are? -- honestly, i'm at the point in dealing with an open canon where i cannot give fuck about any of the unanswered questions, the upcoming releases, or anything that might happen in the future at all. i haven't even read thrawn alliances. i am Over It, and that is about 99% the fault of the people who keep calling me a reddit douchebro by association. i probably won't see epIX unless kat or sophia tells me i absolutely have to. i'm a legends-only fan at this point. i didn't want to be, i like getting excited about new things, but every time i try it, people are douchewaffles and it's depressing. :P

13. if you could resurrect one dead character, or prevent them from dying, who would it be? -- new canon, hobbie. old canon, there are so damn many options, but probably mara or pellaeon.

14. what is your favorite alien species? -- i'm not sure i actually have an opinion. i have lots of favorite alien characters but like... idek. star wars has a bunch of really well designed alien species and they're all cool.

15. who would you like to bang? -- honestly i don't really care about banging any of the characters. shipping them is more fun. although i would let princess general leia step on me, whether in a sexy way or not.

16. which movie/episode have you watched the most? -- probably anh. the falcon's flying sfx aren't as good as in esb, but if you watch esb without rotj it's just a downer, and i don't really enjoy rotj. like it just doesn't click with me.

17. what is your favorite line? -- uh. from the movies, or from all the star war? uh. either way that's a hell of a question. the one i quote the most from the movies is definitely "we're all fine here, how are you?", but that's more just... versatile. from the books, my favorite is obviously one of allston's, but i'm not sure i could *pick*.

18. what is your favorite star wars book or comic? -- starfighters of adumar. because it is the best one. objectively. ^_^

19. what’s your opinion on legends/expanded universe? -- i'm extremely glad it isn't canon anymore (see also my issues with open canons, but also a significant amount of it was just trash) and extremely glad it's still around.

20. what do you hope will happen in future movies? -- i have no hope. hope is dead. i am, as previously mentioned, Over It. (let oscar isaac kiss john boyega onscreen)

21. if you could switch any character’s gender, who would it be and why? -- in canon? no. there's no point in turning a lady character into a dude, and neither the creators nor the fans are capable of handling anyone who's currently a dude being written as a lady or nb type, even if it was retroactive and they'd always been written that way. just no. it would go Badly. :P

that said. in fanfic? and i am so not capable of writing this yet but i want to. in like five years when we're all living in caves scratching our fanfics on bone. i want to see a cis afab wes janson who just hasn't internalized any of those lessons about not taking up space. who's still brash and loud and enthusiastic and flirtatious and just... female. who doesn't feel any need to explain that she doesn't (or does) want kids, or acknowledge anybody else's opinion about how she dresses or who she fucks. who's smart and badass and competent and out to have fun. and like... *pulls hair* i mean you know the trope. a sexy lady character who knows she's sexy will pretty much always at least consider sleeping her way to the top or whatever. (tim zahn, seriously, stop using that trope. it's not edgy.) i want to see lady!wes dressing up all fancy because it's fun and she enjoys having people admire her body, and like just... not even considering ever having sex for any other reason than "i am attracted to that person, i wonder if they'd like to bang". like it's hard to demonstrate a negative but you know if you read a story like that, where it wasn't called out but just there, your brain would go all fidgety and "what the fuck something is not normal here". or at least mine would. but you know? :S apparently i have a lot of feelings about this too. like trying to portray a lady who's that confident and... and undamaged by misogyny, would be a hell of a thing.

22. favorite droid? -- bb-8. the cutest smol. target has a kit to turn a pumpkin into a bb-8 and i swear i'm thinking about getting a funkin to do that to. even though i already have a bb-8 penny bank and a bb-8 lanyard in storage.

23. what’s your favorite star wars musical piece or theme? -- i'm not great at identifying pieces of music so i'm just gonna go with the opening crawl music.

24. how do you pronounce twi’lek? -- i don't. ^_^ more specifically, i do kind of pronounce it in my head when i read, but it's sort of... neither twee-lek nor twye-lek, but something sort of in between that isn't quite a schwa and might involve an umlaut. Sort of Twülek, if you said it with an Austrian accent. That probably doesn't help at all. XD

25. which character do you have a love/hate relationship with? -- This keeps being a question. I'm honestly not sure I *do* love-hate relationships. I'm like Tinkerbell, I only have room for one emotion at a time. ^_^ Especially with fictional characters, I either love them or hate them. (Unless they're completely meh and I just forget about them, that happens sometimes.)

[gardenofpoppies23]

Thanks for the tag @the-bibliophile-jedi (sorry for this late response)

Answer these 10 Star Wars-related questions, reblog, and tag your favorite Reylo blogs to join in!

1) Who is your favorite Star Wars character of the new trilogy (excluding Rey and Kylo)?

I’d say Rose is my new favorite. I think she’s awfully sweet, and the idea of her being this ‘nobody’ in the Resistance in the beginning of Ep. 8, to someone who stepped up and was willing to save what she cared most about is really, really touching for me.

2) If you had a lightsaber, what color would you want it to be?

My favorite color is blue, but it’s been used so many times within the series already. I’d go with purple or mint green.

3) What is/are your favorite quote(s) from a Star Wars movie?

Lemme see:

1. The greatest teacher, failure is.

2. That’s how we’re going to win. Not fighting what we hate. Saving what we love.

3. You’re not alone. Neither are you.

4. Who’s more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?

5. The longing you see is not behind you. It is in front you.

4) Do you think Kylo/Ben will survive Episode IX?

Yes I do. To me, his survival is one of the main plot points for the last episode. He’s the only Skywalker left and to have him killed would defeat the purpose of all these films. All that pain and suffering and the past mistakes that just couldn’t be corrected, all of that to end in his death? I dunno. Having him live and deal with his mistakes so that he can finally find peace and happiness resonates more with me. But I’m open to alternatives.

5) What are your top 3 favorite Star Wars films?

Well I still have to rewatch the Prequels, but I’m already familiar with all the major plot points. So here’s my personal faves so far: The Last Jedi, Return of the Jedi and Rogue One. (Yes, I like ROTJ and Rogue One. Don’t mind me.)

6) Which droid would you most like to own/ have as your sidekick on intergalactic adventures?

BB-8…☺

7) Which Jedi master would you most like to train under: Luke, Yoda, Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan?

I’d love to train under Obi-Wan or Yoda. Just for the snark and the sassy, salty quotes.

8) What is your favorite scene featuring Rey and Kylo?

My number one fave would be when they touched hands in that hut. It felt so intimate, and watching it in the theater made me hold my breath because it felt so private and pure. Like I shouldn’t be there watching them, but it almost feels like a privilege to have witnessed that moment.

9) What order did you initially see the saga films in?

Welp. This is gonna be complicated. Okay. This is my messed up timeline: The Clone Wars film, Episode 7, Rogue One, Ep.8 and 4,5,6.

10) What is your ideal ending for Reylo in Episode IX?

Emotional. Very emotional. I mean, I think they’re setting it up to be that way already, but I’d still love that. As for specific details, I don’t have any ideal scenarios right now except for their happiness of course.

I will tag:

@moody-avocado @annamaillia-135 @lorelei448 @candicemorgan-accola @reylosource @normadcisba