#watching rotj is just making me really fucking sad for him

[secondstar-acorn]

hey besties we aren’t talking about Luke’s pain and trauma enough

[yellowocaballero]

what stuff can't you forgive batman beyond for? :o

Ugh OK. Disclaimer that none of these things make Batman Beyond bad. None of this is bad writing. I just don't like it. It's fine, actually, I just hate it.

I know Batman Beyond had to justify its existence somehow and answer the question "why is the ONLY PERSON who could become Batman a random teenager off the street?". There had to be some sort of reason why Bruce was completely isolated from Dick, Tim, and Barbara, and why Dick or Tim wasn't Batman.

The ways in which it got rid of them though!! Dick's like 60 and he hates Bruce and never speaks to him! Barbara's a cop, which she would never do, who had a thing with Bruce. Superman's infected by Starro so all of his friends at the League are out. And freaking Return of the Joker, oh my god. Putting aside the fucking sadness of Tim also never speaking to his dad and living an entire life pretending Batman and Robin never happened. COME ON. I really didn't like the "Terry is Bruce's secret kid" thing either, but that's less of a moral and more of a personal stance.

Sometimes a work is the most influential work in your writing completely against your will and without your permission. Return of the Joker traumatized me as a kid, and for some reason although I hate it SO FUCKING MUCH, it's permeated a lot of what I write with Tim. His death in the Reverse Robins thing was directly what happened in ROTJ, except he killed himself instead of the Joker. And I never even get into much detail on Tim's death there because it makes me sad.

Batman Beyond, you did not stop to consider those of you who were watching every DCAU cartoon sequentially, and who had come fresh off watching the most adorable small child run around doing Robin things in the final season of BTAS. You did not stop to wonder if he was a baby only a week before in my own mind. And now this.

DCAU!Batman had always been a lighthearted, kind person who had a robust support network. He had shipteasing. With Wonder Woman. It was really sad to see every good thing in his life stripped away and turn him withered, bitter, and old. Showing Batman in that light isn't bad in and of itself, but I was attached to this guy :c. Why hadn't they just set up another continuity where these characters didn't exist so they didn't have to worry about depressingly shoving them aside?

Oh, and. Just kidding. I can forgive them for all of this. I hate it, but it's fine. What I actually cannot forgive them for is for fucking Bruce and Barbara having an affair. Oh my god. Oh my god. Bad. So bad.

[willowcrowned]

Star Wars Time Travel AU - Flavor: Anakin and Obi-Wan, from ROTJ to TPM

I asked, you guys answered. Here it is: Obi-Wan and Anakin get sent back to TPM after ROTJ, and proceed to confuse everyone. In everyone’s defense, Anakin and Obi-Wan have a lot of confusing trauma.

The thing about being dead is that it’s not quite as restful as everyone made it out to be. 

Oh, Obi-Wan is sure that if he’d done the irresponsible thing and ignored Qui-Gon and passed properly into the netherworlds of the Force instead of following his bloody Path of the Whills, he would be perfectly happy floating along as part of the larger universe. And alright, he doesn’t regret doing it because Luke desperately needed the help, what with Yoda’s isolation having made him only more reticent, but it’s still annoying. Because even though he watched Anakin toss Sidious down a reactor shaft and die peacefully in his sons arms before moving on, the next phase of existence looks a whole lot like the Healer’s Ward at the Jedi temple forty years ago, and he’s being stared at by one very alive-looking Mace Windu.

“Hello there,” Obi-Wan says, because being dead is no excuse for being impolite. “Whose idea was it to decorate like this? I find it rather gauche.”

One also very alive looking Vokara Che sends him a warning look. “Large windows and pale colors are beneficial to the health of patients.”

“Oh, I think we’re rather past the need for worrying about our health,” Obi-Wan jokes.

Vokara just gives him a confused and suspicious look. “Are you alright, Obi-Wan?”

Obi-Wan feels hysterical laughter bubble up inside him. He’s dead. He watched the Jedi fall, felt their deaths like they were his own and heard the Force crying out at the pain and wrongness of it all; he disfigured— attempted to kill— one of the few people he had ever loved, fully and unconditionally, and felt the attempt rend him further apart in the process, and then he watched as that person twisted themself into a horrible facsimile of what they once were; he hid for twenty years on a desert planet while slowly detaching himself from his physical body so he could train and advise a child on whom he pinned nearly all his hopes; he was killed by Vader, and then watched Luke save him— save the man Obi-Wan couldn’t— and saw Vader kill Sidious, and then die. And now— now— he has finally passed on, expecting rest and peace, only to wake up in the healer’s ward of a temple that was destroyed.

Obi-Wan laughs, sharp and harsh and slightly deranged. “No,” he says, “I am not.”

“Yeah,” says a voice from next to him, “I get that.”

Obi-Wan turns to see Anakin— wait, no. Obi-Wan turns to see an unharmed Anakin— well, not quite. Obi-Wan turns to see Anakin, alive, unharmed, whole... and all of nine years old.  

“Anakin?” Obi-Wan asks, surprised. He’d assumed that this odd make-believe healer’s ward was a result of the Path of the Whills— a journey that Anakin had decidedly not undertaken.

“Yep,” Anakin says crossing his arms. “So, this is what being dead is like? I’d assumed it would be less, uh,” he searches for the word, “medical.”

“It could be a construct,” Obi-Wan suggests, “while our consciousnesses slowly dissipate— a waystation of sorts. Of course,” he frowns, “that doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“Excuse me,” Mace Windu says, very on-edge, “but what exactly are you two talking about?”

“Ugh,” Anakin complains, lying back, “why is he here?”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan says, acerbic, “I wonder why he could be here, what with that fall you gave him.”

Anakin flushes, embarrassed. “Fair point.”

“So,” Obi-Wan turns to Mace Windu, “where are we exactly?”

Windu raises an extremely suspect eyebrow. “You’re in the Healer’s Ward at the Jedi temple on Coruscant.”

“Well, yes,” Obi-Wan says, a touch exasperated, “but where are we?”

Windu frowns at him.

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin says, “I don’t think he knows what you mean.”

Windu casts an evaluating glance at Anakin. “No, I don’t.”

Obi-Wan gives him a curious look before turning back to Anakin. “Perhaps he’s part of the construct.” He pauses. “Speaking of, why have you chosen to look like that?”

“Like what?” Anakin blinks confused.

“Like—” Obi-Wan huffs. “Does anyone have a mirror?”

“There’s one in the fresher,” Vokara Che says.

Anakin hops out of bed, and after a moment, Obi-Wan follows him to the fresher.

“Oh sweet stars and suns,” Anakin breathes, looking at his ten year old face. “I really used to look like this?”

Obi-Wan looks in the mirror as well, shocked to find that he looks as he did when he was twenty, padawan braid and all. “You know, I’m actually very glad that I’m never going to have to try to unpack the psychological implications of this,” he remarks.

Anakin snorts. “Yeah, why’d you choose to look like that?”

“I... didn’t,” Obi-Wan realizes. Before, he’d been able to change his appearance to living beings. He hadn’t for Luke, partially because Luke probably wouldn’t have taken very well to a thirty year old Obi-Wan, and partially because there wasn’t a point, given that Force ghosts didn’t get creaky knees.  

“Weird,” Anakin says.

They head out of the fresher to see that Vokara Che and Mace Windu are looking at them as if they’ve grown second heads.

“So let me unpack this,” Windu says, “you both think you’re dead.”

Anakin and Obi-Wan look at each other.

“We have reason to believe so, yes,” Obi-Wan replies, amused. “Are you going to try to convince us that we’re not?”

Windu raises one very unimpressed eyebrow. “I would think that even a padawan would be able to look into the Force to see that they’re not dead.”

Obi-Wan looks at Anakin, who shrugs. It seems that neither of them have allowed themselves to be very connected to the Force. It must be a force of habit— Obi-Wan had been careful on Tatooine to never let too much of the outside filter in, for fear of Vader finding him, and for fear that the dark currents in the Force would sweep him away. Perhaps Vader had done a similar thing.

“Shall we?” Obi-Wan suggests to Anakin. At this point, it’s likely that this is the construct telling them both that they need to connect to the Force to finally relinquish their consciousnesses.

Anakin shrugs. “Can’t make things worse, right?”

Obi-Wan snorts. “On three?”

Anakin nods.  

“One, two, three.”

Obi-Wan drops his outer shielding, letting the Force filter through.  

What he feels isn’t the ethereal, ineffable currents of the Force, calling him to drift among them as they had during his time as a Force ghost. What he feels is thousands of bright lights, sparks where there should be void, and a darkness that has surrounded everything but not yet consumed it.

“Oh,” Obi-Wan breathes. “Anakin, I’m not sure we’re dead.”

Anakin doesn’t say anything back, and Obi-Wan turns to see him crying.

“They’re alive,” Anakin whispers, tears rolling down his cheeks, face frozen in wonder and horror and guilt. “They’re all alive.”

Obi-Wan can feel them— every single one— and a lump rises in his throat. “It’s—” he starts, but he can’t finish the sentence. “We—”

Anakin nods, face still frozen. “How?”

“I—” Obi-Wan shakes his head, “I don’t know.”

“We were— you were—”

“I know.”

“And now they’re—” Anakin takes a deep breath, small body shuddering, and Obi-Wan instinctively gathers him up in his arms, holding him close.

“It’s impossible,” Obi-Wan says. “You were dead. I was dead. I felt it.”

“Luke,” Anakin chokes, “We—”

“We’re alive,” Obi-Wan says hoarsely. “The Jedi are alive— none of it has to happen.”

“Mustafar,” Anakin adds, hoarse. “Padmé.”

“The Death Star. Alderaan.” Obi-Wan says in a dark undertone. Then, louder, “I will be very cross if I get chopped in half again.”

Anakin frowns at him, momentarily distracted. “The blow didn’t hit. I should know. You have nothing to complain about.”

“I have nothing to complain about?” Obi-Wan replies, indignant. “I was on Tatooine for twenty years!”

“You cut off my arms and legs!” Anakin shouts.

Obi-Wan huffs. “Only three!”

“I was stuck in a stupid life-support suit for twenty! Fucking! Years!” Anakin retorts. “Do you know how much that sucked? I couldn’t eat real food! I fucking suffocated just because I took off my helmet to see my son in my last breaths!”

“You killed me!” Obi-Wan shouts indignantly.  

There’s a cough from beside him, and a silence as Vokara Che, Mace Windu, and several very nosy padawans stare at him.

Obi-Wan looks at them, slightly embarrassed by his outburst. “I got better.”

Anakin looks at Obi-Wan, the rage in his eyes not Vader’s, but Anakin’s, and then slowly, slowly, it dissipates.

Anakin snorts. “Fuck, we made a mess of things.”

A small, sad, smile creeps on to Obi-Wan's face. “We really did.” He sighs. “I suppose we’ll have to fix everything.”

Anakin shrugs. “Well, Sith Lords are our specialty.” He sighs. “And then I’m retiring on Naboo and learning to fish.”

[irhinoceri]

I didn’t both to log onto tumblr yesterday so i’m sure all the primo Book of Boba Fett discourse has passed me by. But I was on Twitter browsing the memes and besides all the talk about whether Boba Fett’s show should have so much Mandalorian side questing, my two main takeaways are:

They didn’t give Chuck Wendig a shoutout for Cobb Vanth and it made him sad and now I can’t enjoy Cobb Vanth anymore.

Seriously all they had to do was put “special thanks to Chuck Wendig” in the credits.

Fuck Disney.

I get the feeling that Luke in new canon is going to continue to be hella divisive, and because they are getting better and better at bringing him to life from a technical standpoint, they are going to get bolder and more ambitious about portraying him and his life between RotJ and TFA. Honestly when I watched it, in between squealing and crying and squeezing my cat every time Grogu was on screen (I am nowhere near immune to the Babu) I kept thinking “oh this is going to reignite the Luke discourse from TLJ days.”

I’m strangely zen about it. This Luke is new canon Luke. He’s destined to repeat the mistakes of the past and fail in rebuilding the Jedi Order. I don’t know if Favreau and Filoni are having him be this way on purpose because they are conscious of that fact, or if they really think that this is how the Jedi Order should be, but it makes me more calm about it. We’re never going to get reformist Legends Luke Skywalker or reinvented Legends New Jedi Order from any Disney produced project because they are not going to backtrack on what the sequel trilogy told us about Luke’s life. He ran a Jedi Academy that sought to copy the Jedi of old and Kylo Ren brought about its downfall and Luke reacted by going into exile just like Yoda. His life was a rather tragic rehash of Yoda’s.... failure and exile. Man. I’m bummed out all over again by The Last Jedi. Just when I thought I was over it. (I’ll never be over it). I looked up his Wookieepedia page and felt overwhelming sadness when I saw the birth and death dates and did the quick mental calculation to remind myself that he was only 53 when he died. They got rid of him and his life’s work to build up Rey and then they didn’t even do right by Rey. It is what it is and it’s not going to be changed by anything that Disney puts out.

But besides that sense of sadness about the sequels being rekindled, if I think about Last Jedi Luke when watching The Mandalorian or Book of Boba Fett I’m not bothered all that much because it’s Disney’s Luke. That’s all we can expect from him. I think people got their hopes up that Filoni and Favreau were going to course correct away from the sequels, but, whether or not they even want to do that, they can’t... these interstitial series are inevitably going to have to tell the story of how the New Republic and the New Jedi Order failed just like the Old.

I just hope that by the end Boba Fett, Din Djarin, Fennec Shand, and Grogu get treated better than Rey, Poe, and Finn did.

I’m not sure what to think about Ahsoka. In the end though that’s Dave Filoni’s character and getting mad at him about her feels pointless, like being mad at George Lucas about Anakin or Padme. You can disapprove but at the end of the day all you can really do is maybe write some fix-it fanfic and move on.

[rise-above-the-grave]

[smashes down door] who is Bail and why do you like him? I could look it up but I'd rather you gush over him

OH BOY.

So first off, a quick (canon) history lesson: Bail Organa was the Senator and Viceroy (aka Prince Consort) of Alderaan. If you don't know what that means (because old titles are Weird - I'm not judging the only reason I know this is because of this very character), it means that Breha, Bail's wife, is ruling Queen of Alderaan and was the heir to the throne. She married Bail, making him a ruler by marriage, though technically she still held the crown. He, at some point, was also elected Senator of Alderaan, and was Senator leading up to and during The Clone Wars (and after, but we're getting to that).

So Bail, we come to find out, became (best) friends with Padmé Amidala. We see him in a couple of scenes in Attack of the Clones with Padmé, just kinda vibing and making the occasional commentary. We know he stood with her on the Opposition bill (the bill Padmé was nearly killed over at the beginning of AOTC, which was against the formation of a Republic military), though we don't learn much about the rest of his politics until later.

So he's kinda...there, but obvs isn't the focus of the story, and is really just a minor background character. The first real insight we get into Bail is, actually, a really tiny character moment right at the end of AOTC, when Palpatine and some of the Senators are looking down at the Clone troops loading up onto the ship, watching their new military gear up for war.

Bail looks away. While everyone else is staring down at the (slave) army, some of them smiling (like Sheev), some of them just serious, Bail looks away from them and makes this tiny little hand gesture: a simple, closed fist knocking against the banister of the balcony.

It's this, I think, that first piqued my interest in this character. He was the only one not triumphant in that situation. He was the only one who saw things for what they were: a tragedy, and a horror, and that this wasn't something to celebrate but to mourn.

Then we come to Revenge of the Sith, and boy howdy. The man may have like 10 minutes of screen time, but does he make those 10 minutes count!

A quick bullet point of the Important Things Bail Does in ROTS:

When the Jedi Temple is burning, what does Bail do? He flies to it to figure out what's going on and see if he can save anyone. He then watches as a youngling is shot and killed by Clone Troopers, and manages to escape because he's a fucking badass.

Please note, to our knowledge, Bail is the only one who actually goes to check on the Jedi Temple.

As soon as he escapes the Temple, Bail immediately - like immediately - takes his ship and goes to find any surviving Jedi. He is almost certainly the reason both Yoda and Obi-Wan don't walk into the trap that is the Jedi Temple, or are captured - and even if that's not true, he most definitely is the reason they manage to sneak safely onto Coruscant and figure out what happened.

He's the one who rescues Yoda (again) after Yoda's failed duel with Palpatine in the Senate. Which, let me rant about the SYMBOLISM of that for a second please. Because holy shit, the entire duel between Yoda and Palpatine takes place in the Senate, with the Senate building and pods. Here Palpatine proves to Yoda that yes, he is the Senate, he controls it, the new Empire is under his control and no one can stop him. But then - but then - Yoda escapes, and who saves him? Bail. Bail sneaks in with a speeder, saves Yoda, and gets him back to safety. Which is such a huge fucking metaphor for the fact that Bail will be the one who, ultimately, is responsible for Palpatine's defeat. But, more on that later.

Bail is there when Padmé (remember, his best friend) gives birth to Luke and Leia. Bail is literally one of 3 sentients in the galaxy who canonically knows about both Luke and Leia.

Bail instantly offers to adopt one of the children, saying "She will be loved with us." (And then she absolutely is.)

And he does all of that in line 10 minutes of screen time.

He shows up again briefly in Star Wars Rebels, and again in Rogue One, but I'm going to take a trip down a side alley here into a territory that is grossly unused in the SW EU: the founding of the Rebellion.

So we don't actually know much about how the Rebellion got started. What we do know is that Bail was one of the (if not the main) Founders. Bail was the mastermind behind the Rebellion, by all accounts knowing...everything about it: who was who, who did what, where they were located, etc. He knows (and controls) Fulcrum in Rebels, as just one example, and Fulcrum is considered by that text to be one of the most powerful Rebel operatives at the time. In Rogue One (regardless of whether you liked what they did with the Rebellion which, side note, I did not), we see he certainly has a position of great authority and power. People respect him, and listen to him, and he's on an even footing with Mon Mothma (or Mom Mothma as my autocorrect tried to say) who is canonically one of the most powerful people in the Rebellion, according to ROTJ.

More than what he did, though, we can look to his character as a reason I love him. He is a good, kind, honorable man who does (or at least tries) his best. We see again and again, throughout all of SW media he's in, that he consistently chooses the right path, regardless of whether or not it's the easy one. He fights corruption, fights for justice, fights for freedom, fights against tyranny.

He is also, canonically, an amazing father and (according to EU content, since Breha literally doesn't have a spoken line in any media content) an incredible husband. We know he's well-loved by his people, and by the Rebellion, by the extraneous texts and mentions about him in the wake of his death on Alderaan. He's also respected by many Senators during his time in the Clone Wars (Padmé makes a comment in a TCW episode about how he's the best and most respected speaker and Senator she knows), and regardless of how people felt about him after the Rise of the Empire (which is, unfortunately - or fortunately maybe, because I don't trust Disney to do it right - up to headcanon), the fact remains that Bail played an incredibly tricky position as an Imperial Senator, having to balance fighting for his people, the people of the galaxy, and setting up the Rebellion, with not making himself too much of a nuisance, or too much of a traitor, that Palpatine straight up had him executed.

Which, speaking of that, can we also take a moment to appreciate the fact that Bail knew almost every single secret that Palpatine and Vader wanted??? He knew where Obi-Wan was, and possibly where Yoda was. He knew where both of Anakin and Padmé's children were. He knew everything about the fledgling Rebellion. Like...that man, had he been captured and interrogated (and had he broken) would have damned the entire galaxy. Yet he never was. He played his cards perfectly, and was either never suspected, or was able to somehow hide all of the information they wanted to know from being found. Personally, I suspect a mixture of the two.

Furthermore, Bail Organa is a great father and husband. He is directly responsible for Leia being the amazing woman we know and love. The one shot we get of Breha, you can practically see and feel the love and adoration Bail has for her radiating off of him through the screen. Literally the most unproblematic ship in Star Wars. I have never seen a single person say they aren't amazing (unless they just want to break them up to make Bail gay? Which, come on, bisexual and polyamorous people exist, y'all. But that's a talk for another time).

If you're still not convinced, the only thing left that I can say is: I'm a raging lesbian and like, while I definitely wouldn't fuck him, Bail/Jimmy Smits (his actor) is handsome. Have some pictures that I have saved on my phone for when I'm feeling sad.

Tl;dr: Bail Organa is singlehandedly responsible for putting into motion the events that secure the galaxy's freedom, not only by being one of the founding fathers of the Rebellion, but also by reaching Yoda and Obi-Wan before the new Empire can, and getting them safely to Coruscant. He is a good, kind, and noble man who does his best in shitty times, and even if he has to make hard choices, he always makes them for the right reasons. He is a loving father, husband, and ruler, who does right by his people and his family. He fights for what's right, even when that fight is nearly impossible. He's a badass, and arguably a literal genius (you'd have to be, to do the kinds of things he does in canon).

Anyway, Bail Organa is great and I love him - and you should too.

[helbertinelli]

I wanted to see the new Jedi Order AND the New Republic in the sequels. But no, instead we got A New Hope 2.0, Luke 2.0, and Darth Vader 2.0. This is so disappointing.

Yeah, the sequels were disappointing. There were so many better ways to continue the story of SW (although personally I think they shouldn’t have continued it), but they chose to go about it in the worst way possible. They had no idea why SW was loved and they focused on the absolute worst things and then switched to new things when the first thing didn’t work rather than to try to fix the thing that didn’t work.

Like they were for sure that people loved SW for Vader so they gave us a guy who wore a costume that looked similar to Vader’s, but the character himself had no personality, he had some lame motivation to join the dark side, and he wanted nothing more than to stay evil. People didn’t like Kylo and then they were like okay, well Palpatine was in all 6 films, they have to like him. And then they brought back Palaptine.

But they missed the fact that the people loved Star Wars for the story. That the characters in SW were just characters without the story to tie them all in.

Everyone loved Luke saving Vader and Vader wanting to be redeemed. The sequels tried that story with Rey and Kylo, but 1. There was no reason for Rey to want to save Kylo. He wasn’t her father, he had no relation to her other than the fact that he killed Han in front of her and he tortured her and her friends. 2. Kylo didn’t want redemption. Every time he was offered the chance to do something good he turned it down and it was like 2 or 3 times that this happened. Vader didn’t. Yes, he didn’t accept Luke’s help at first, but he did in the end. And after Palpatine died, Vader wasn’t like “Okay, I’m taking his place now. Join me or you’re nothing to me“ to Luke. Vader did want to rule the galaxy with Luke right after he found out he has a son, but he gave up on that and realized that he needs to come back to Luke rather than to have Luke joining him. He realized he needs to make the right decision because his son is important to him and he can’t lose his son. Rey wasn’t important for Kylo. She was literally no one to him. They had no relationship at all, except what Kylo said: “My grandfather worked for your grandfather so we’re a dyad” (I legit had to pause the movie because I couldn’t stop laughing... they even ripped off Space Balls omg). Maybe the sequels would have been better if the two were related (either siblings or cousins). But they were just strangers and Rey just decided one day that she wants to save Kylo for some reason and then she decided that she’ll go back to trying to kill him and they kinda switch back and forth between that and it’s just a complete mess and doesn’t even come close to the story of Luke redeeming Vader that they were trying to rip-off from the OT.

People loved Vader being mysterious and intimidating and they loved the idea of this powerful Sith lord wearing a mask (like the Sith of the Old Republic did). And the sequels tried to copy that aesthetic, but then they reveal Kylo’s face right away and he’s not intimidating at all and the whole mystery around his identity behind the mask goes away too. And his entire thing is to be whiny and throw a tantrum when things don’t go his way and destroy everything around him. I guess they were trying to copy Vader choking people with that, but the scary thing about Vader was that he would choke people but he’d put no energy into it and he’d stay calm and it was kinda unnerving how calm he was when he was choking the life out of someone. This is why Vader was intimidating and menacing. He didn’t lash out like a spoiled child and destroy his toys. He was in control even when he wasn’t and he was calm and made it seem like taking someone’s life was no issue to him.

Anakin’s backstory is loved by people. The way someone who was a Jedi and good became a Sith and took down the entire Jedi order and basically destroyed everything his world was about in the process was extremely complex and well-written and Anakin is somewhat of a sympathetic character because a lot of people can see that he made the wrong choices for all the right reasons (he just wanted to save his wife and their unborn child... children as we later find out). Kylo’s turn to the dark side is just he was contacted by Snoke, who whispered bad things to him about Luke, and for some reason Luke decided that the only way to deal with this is to for some reason kill Kylo in his sleep??? (yeah I also don’t understand why the guy who spent 3 movies trying to redeem Vader and refused to fight Vader and was about to let himself get killed by the Emperor because he was convinced his Sith lord father was actually good and would save him, is now like “You know, my nephew has to die. He can’t be redeemed.”). And then Kylo’s immediate reaction to this was to kill everyone else in Luke’s temple because I guess they also needed to rip-off Order 66 (out of all things that happened). Kylo isn’t sympathetic in this way because 1. He had a loving family and a good support system with Han and Leia and even Luke to some extent. He wasn’t like Anakin who never had anyone to talk to and who had to keep his life a secret from the Jedi and who grew up a slave and who was desperate to save the only family he had left. Kylo’s life was good and they said it was good in the sequels too. 2. He got threatened by Luke and his very next choice is to go kill a bunch of innocent people. He never showed any ounce of remorse for his actions. At least with Anakin, we see that he’s torn apart when he’s pledging himself to Palpatine and he’s basically hurt and haunted by his actions starting from then on. Kylo just killed a bunch of people and he’s going around like “yep, just another Tuesday...“

And aside from just doing a bad rip-off of a story that was already presented in the same universe, they also messed up with other characters that were beloved.

Luke, who never gave up on his father and who even abandoned his training (I think) to go save his family, is now the guy who wanted to kill his nephew at the first sign of the dark side and then his solution was to leave his family behind and never see them again.

Han is a deadbeat dad who left his wife when things got hard and went away on a road trip with Chewie to avoid any responsibility.

Leia is always sad and she desperately wants to forgive Kylo (they basically gave her Padme’s personality for some reason, when she’s more like Anakin). Like I can see Han forgiving Kylo (because he does have a big heart despite his rugged exterior), but giving what we know about Leia’s character, she wouldn’t forgive Kylo. It took Leia a long time to come to terms with forgiving Anakin and she wouldn’t even talk to his Force Ghost when he came to apologize, even though she knew he’d never see him again. There’s no way that she sees Kylo basically turning into Vader 2.0 and she’s like “there’s still good in him.“ Like he destroyed an entire system of planets, that had to bring back some painful memories for Leia. She actually had to watch Alderaan be destroyed. And he killed Han. I know their relationship was ruined in TFA, but TFA also made it clear that Leia and Han were still in love. There’s no way she would have forgiven Kylo or thought he was still good after he killed his dad and her husband. And he tried to kill her too if I remember correctly. He fired on her ship, which made her float out into space. Leia isn’t like Luke or Padme. It would be difficult for her to forgive Kylo for basically turning into her worst nightmare and taking her family away from her and killing so many other people too.

And then they bring back Palpatine too because I’m guessing their thought process was “well he was in all 6 movies that people loved, we do need a good villain.“ And it made no sense. Palpatine died like twice in ROTJ. He got destroyed by the reactor that Vader threw him in and then the entire Death Star exploded into tiny particles. There was no way for the Death Star to be crash landed on Exegol since it basically blew up in all directions in the middle of nowhere in space. Bringing him back basically invalidated all of Anakin’s story because him dying to bring balance to the Force was for nothing. He didn’t balance anything, Palpatine was never defeated. They really didn’t need Palpatine to be the villain of TROS. You could replace him with any other random villain and nothing changes. They only brought him back to make a reference to the old movies and have people watch their movie for nostalgia. But I honestly don’t know who was nostalgic for Sheev.

Anyway, it’s embarrassing that they had a good story that they tried to rip-off and they still managed to fuck it up. Like how hard it is to rip-off Star Wars and still have a good story? Didn’t Disney actually accomplish it before in a Phineas and Ferb special? I don’t know why they couldn’t do it this time around too.

But for real, they should have showed the New Jedi Order and the New Republic and show us how Luke and Leia were changing the world for the better and how they were fighting to keep the world a better place rather than to give us a watered down version of the First Galatic Empire vs Rebels but with worse characters and a worse story this time around.

[knightotoc]

The Rise and Fall of Baby Yoda

Ever since baby Yoda united all the factions of SW fans, I wondered how long the peace and happiness would last. It was just such a good fucking reveal: the first ever unquestionably badass SW protagonist on this gritty TV show for grownups has to kill a man, and that man is...a baby Yoda. It's a twist on the level of "I am your father," except instead of Vader challenging a hero's sense of compassion, baby Yoda challenges a villain's sense of indifference. The audience of ESB realizes that the world is worse than they thought it was, and the audience of Mando realizes the world is better. In either case, it got a lot more complicated in a really appealing way, 'cuz now our guy has to get along with his enemy instead of just killing him.

And just like Vader's, baby Yoda's setup was always doomed to surpass its payoff. People generally agree that ESB is better than RotJ (I like RotJ more because I love bears and Ian McDiarmid, but I know ESB is better). And Mando's basically been sitting on the plot ever since episode 3, which is fine, if tiresome, 'cuz they're never gonna reach that initial high again.

It was remarkable to have something so neutral, so universally lovable: a baby, an alien without any of the politics of humanity, a fun little mystery they can indefinitely hold off on answering. But even with such absurdly agreeable content, we still wanna fight each other. And I'm afraid the peace is finally over (and good riddance!).

Here's a record of the various baby Yoda discourses I've observed in his first year of life.

"He's ugly." The first criticisms were from the flabbergasted haters, their eyes dazzled but their hearts undeclared. The fight was not on their side, and most of them soon changed their minds, worn down by the bigness of his eyes and the opinion of Werner Herzog. The remnants of this camp have largely exited the conversation and live on only in memes and stories.

"He's a corporate ploy." Following these weirdos, the smarties and the cynics got their hands on their opinion pieces. Disney+ is a menace and deserves every criticism it gets, pinging off its mighty armor like righteous pebbles. If baby Yoda stands for anything in the real world, it can't be anything good. Look at him, cooing and blinking, draining $7 a month from the pockets of the poor. He is there to distract from, even justify the rampant censorship and selfishness of his platform. Of course they are right, but this is the kind of thing we compartmentalize.

"Where's the merch?!" The most baffling problem of baby Yoda's young life was the utter lack of official merchandise during the 2019 holiday season -- and the more sinister accompanying problem of Disney's random lawsuits against fanmade stuff. Why the hell weren't they ready to sell him? We were desperate! Remember the drama of the immediately-sold-out fancy animatronic? This problem has been largely solved -- you can buy him at Target now -- but, for a while, it was really weird.

"He's not cool anymore." My favorite criticism of the little guy is "Baby Yoda is to millenials what minions are to Boomers." (I think Emma Benshoff on Twitter came up with this joke, though it has been repeated in a lot of places.) Nothing burns like Gen Z burns. The teens are too smart for this. Even without any storytelling baggage, baby Yoda's popularity weighs him down on its own. But this is the kind of outsider observation that doesn't really affect the fans themselves. If I thought I was cool, I wouldn't be writing this (and you wouldn't be reading it).

"Gina blocked me." While baby Yoda himself has been, until recently, blameless, his co-stars are human beings. Gina Carano, it turns out, is a hateful and transphobic conspiracy theorist, while Pedro Pascal is an antifa messenger, an advocate for immigrants, and an utter fucking delight. So good people are mad at her and bad people are mad at him. This rift is ongoing, with no word from the cowards on high as to how this will resolve. While this doesn't involve the baby directly, it is certainly an Event.

She blocked me!😎

And finally, #6, the egg thing. In the latest episode, baby Yoda mischievously eats some eggs from a nice frog lady. Many people had a bad reaction to this, and have expressed disgust at baby Yoda's actions, anger at Mando's lack of disciple, and disappointment in its comedic framing. Many other people took offense to their reactions, while others found them amusing and have delighted in the absurdity of baby Yoda, of all people, getting canceled. The battle lines drawn seem gendered and quite mean.

The egg discourse makes me sad -- not because the era of fandom peace is over, but because I think the boys are going to win this one. Male writers and directors will not learn to care about women's feelings, because how can you complain about baby Yoda? That's silly!

I am all for dark humor (it's my favorite thing about Star Wars), but the sexist history of this franchise doesn't offer it much protection from accusations of punching down. Try to be a little more sensitive, guys; everybody is watching.

[dragonrebelrose]

TROS Reaction 12-20-19. AKA my 6 page long dissertation about why I really disliked TROS.

I didn’t think it would be this bad. I truly thought there would be some gleaming moments of redeemability, but no. It’s one...giant...shit-show. What a horrible blow to the end of not only the sequel trilogy and these characters but to everything that came before. It really takes skill to mess up this badly.

A little something nice though, was the guy I sat next to. Really nice (and cute too ^-^ ) and he offered me some of his candy (Buncha Crunch! My favorite!) before the film started and then throughout the film because he said, “Well this is consolation for having to sit next to me.” Aw I couldn’t have asked for a better seat partner, I didn’t even know him! And then when the film ended he knew I didn’t take it well and I cried and shook through many moments and he offered the rest of his candy and I said, “Thanks, I think I need it.” I asked him what he thought overall and he said, “C-3P0 was pretty funny.” I said, “Yeah I agree. I actually knew everything that happened before I saw it, and I thought it was a mess.” He chuckled and said, “Me too, but I didn’t want to say anything in case you liked it.” I said, “Oh, no, I didn’t really like it. But I gotta be honest, Ben Solo didn’t deserve to die. That’s just my opinion.” I think he was surprised by that but didn’t disagree. He just kinda nodded or something and then we said goodbye and he left with his buddies, who also seemed pretty unenthused by the whole movie. Hopefully I gave him something to think about with my comment, but he was really nice and I’m glad he sat next to me.

Pessimism aside for now, I’ll start by listing the things I liked. I gotta be honest, there’s not much here.

Reylo is canon! But, in my opinion, it was handled pretty badly. Ben’s death is only the start of the problems for it, but more on that later.

C-3P0 is funny I guess. Yes he is annoying sometimes like usual, but not more so than other times.

D-O is freaking adorable. Out of everything good I’ve listed I have no qualms with this one. His manner is cute, his speaking is very funny, and his actions are just precious.

Babu Frik is very cute too, just perfect! Lovely little puppet! Don’t know why he was shoehorned in at the end battle but whatever. We never saw him again.

Maz is a puppet now? Okay, cool. Wish that would’ve been the case since the beginning. You had the technology JJ.

The music is good, when it’s given its own time to shine and be noticed. I feel like I barely noticed it was there because sound effects just drowned it out. Really wasted, but still good nonetheless.

Leia’s death and how it affected Ben. Wow. This was the first moment I truly cried. This was handled very well by Adam Driver, and then Maz saying “Goodbye, Princess.” Ouch, that got me.

Ben talking to the memory of his father! This is something I did not know was in the movie and boy am I glad I wasn’t spoiled for it! THIS is where the really hard tears and sobbing came. I was literally shaking and shivering trying to keep it in so as not to disturb everyone else. This. Part. Was. Perfect. Ben looks at him like he wants to say “I love you,” and Han says out loud “I know.” *crazy screaming and crying* Out of all the things they got wrong for Ben in this film, THIS they got right!

Ben Solo is the Solo boy we always wanted. Running in with a t-shirt, gun slinging, blasting opponents without even looking. THIS is a true son of Solo! But of course they give him no lines except “Ow.” THAT was a bad idea.

And that’s it. Yes those are the only things I even remotely liked, but I have to be honest, each one of these has some kind of problem attached to it which sours the real enjoyment.

On to what I disliked. Strap in lads, this is going to be a long ride.

1. The pacing. OH. MY. GOSH. SLOW. THE. FUCK. DOWN. For fucks sake I couldn’t even process what the hell was happening before we were on to the next thing! This was the biggest problem with the movie, BY FAR. Yes I know the story is terrible, we’ll get to that, but the pacing just completely took me out of the movie. I couldn’t feel invested in anything because it was all in one ear and out the other like ten-fold!

And this is part of the issue I have with how Reylo was handled. It. Felt. So. Rushed. And. Unfinished. There weren’t enough scenes with them and the scenes we did get were so fast and then over with that it felt like no progress was being made at all! It felt, for lack of a better word, unearned. And I know, that’s not really the case since they’ve had plenty of build-up in the last 2 films, but there wasn’t enough time with them spent NOT fighting and hating each other and opposing each other. Yes, I know, Kylo kept trying to get Rey to take his hand, but it doesn’t feel genuine because even Kylo feels out of character, and Rey too, big time. Now this isn’t the actor’s faults, they did what they could with the shitty story they were given, so I put all this blame at JJ’s desk.

In any case the overall film pacing was too fast, too much, too soon, too many things onscreen, too many things happening at once, not enough character, not enough motivation, not enough letting scenes breathe and just play out naturally. Everything felt forced for the sake of the “plot.” Oh we gotta get this thing, and then that thing, to get this thing, so we can defeat these guys! LET. US. BREATHE.

2. The story. My gosh, they couldn’t have picked a worse storyline to follow. Everything truly felt like it was written by a fanboy who wanted to retcon everything in TLJ, even down to the dialogue. Everyone keeps saying to Rey “You’re a Palpatine.” But it sounds SO strange, like nobody says things like this. I get it, it’s a space fantasy, they talk weird mumbo jumbo but it just sounds like a fanboy ghost wrote this. Like we gotta have everyone know now she’s a Palpatine! You’re a Palpatine! You’re a Palpatine! Palpatine heir! All bow down to the Palpatine! Give me a break.

3. Yeah, let’s talk about Palps. The old raisin himself. You know, I never really liked ROTS, but Palps was always a great thing about it. He was sinister, diabolical, he had a plan and knew what to do with it. But this Palps. *le heavy sigh* What a waste this was. For one thing, the lightning effects that lights up his face is really annoying, even for someone who doesn’t get seizures, I can’t even imagine what it’s like for those who do, I’m so sorry. And like, he has this whole legion of Sith followers? The fuck? Where the hell were these guys before? I’m sure they existed BEFORE the last Sith Lord died, right?

I digress. I have a question though: why does he want Rey so much? Why didn’t he try to get his son to take over? Wouldn’t that have been easier? Also, WHO DID HE FUCK TO GET A SON?? HOW DID HIS SON GET AWAY FROM HIM?? WHY DID HIS SON APPARENTLY TURN TO THE LIGHT?? THERE’S TOO MANY QUESTIONS HERE AND NO GOOD EXPLANATIONS. AND NO DISNEY, I DON’T WANT A 10-PART COMIC ON THIS. GO FUCK YOURSELVES.

The only interesting thing about Palps in this film is that his face gets melted off like a Raiders of the Lost Ark knock-off. He better not be coming back. Ever again.

4. And hey, while we’re on the subject, let’s talk about Rey’s parents. So apparently they’re both good people. *le sigh* But what kind of good people leave their daughter alone on a harsh and unforgiving planet with a blubber guy? And don’t tell me they didn’t know he was an abusive asshole, they LIVED on Jakku, they HAD to have known him, ESPECIALLY if they truly were junk traders, they would have DEALT with him. Oh, and apparently the “I’ll come back for you sweetheart, I promise” line is changed up a bit and given to her father after all. No. Screw that. That line was meant for Ben, I don’t care how petty this sounds, this is terrible. So yeah, fuck Rey’s parents, I don’t care how “good” you try to make their intentions, they’re badly shoehorned in and they screw up anyway. Next.

5. Ben’s story and his fate. So yeah, obviously I hate that Ben died, but more than that I hate how his story was handled here. It was so rushed, it didn’t feel as natural as it should have. It needed time to BREATHE. A lot of time! And I feel like they really shafted Kylo/Ben’s story off to the side to give more time to the hereby named GoldenTrio. (You know who I mean...we’ll get to them.) It really seemed like JJ didn’t even care about Ben’s fate anymore, and just kind of put it in as an afterthought. His death scene? Not even given a fucking minute to process because WE GOT TO PARTAY. All in all, his whole story is so terribly sad that I don’t even know if I can watch TFA or TLJ anymore, knowing how it ends.

6. The GoldenTrio. Oh for fucks sake, JJ, you should have killed Poe off when you had the chance, because now the story is all about THEM. Boom! They’re literally front and center in the movie. I don’t even think Reylo gets as much screen time as them. I mean really, Ben’s death scene and Rey’s grieving gets 1.5 minutes, tops. GoldenTrio reunion and threesome hugging? 5 fucking minutes of nothing but them hugging. I’m not even exaggerating. (Okay maybe I am, but it’s given more focus and time to “breathe” than Ben Solo’s fucking death. I’m getting a headache remembering it.)

Hey, remember in ESB and ROTJ where the trio got split up and had their own story lines and own purposes to fulfill without each other hanging around (apart from Han and Leia because their story lines are interconnected)? Yeah, I miss that too.

Also, Rey keeps wandering off being “pulled” to something, and every...single...time, Finn is like “Rey, wait! Poe we gotta get her! rEy CoMe BaCk!!” This happens at least 5 times, pretty consecutively too. It gets old real fast. Boy do I miss the days of TLJ where people got to be away from each other to discover new things without interference.

Which leads me to another point: They tried to shove FinnRey in here while shitting on FinnRose quite literally. What. A. Slap. To. The. Face. This is horrible treatment, and I hope Kelly will never do another interview for Lucasfilm again. She doesn’t deserve this.

7. The Ending™. Wow. What a way to show that your characters haven’t progressed at all by showing them in the same environment that they started in. Let’s do an overview: Rey starts out alone on a desert planet and meets a droid that isn’t hers. Rey ends up alone on a desert planet with a droid that still isn’t hers. PROGRESSION 101!! *slaps forehead* I mean, don’t even get me started on the fact that Ben isn’t there with her and that literally one half of her soul is gone (how is she not in agony right now??), but then to add more salt to the wound she’s just like “oh yeah I must be the rightful successor to the Skywalker name, even tho I’m a Palps...makes sense to me!” Fuck off. You don’t deserve that title after hating Luke for not doing what you wanted him to do and for hating Ben for most of this movie too.

Can we also acknowledge that this is THE ABSOLUTE WORST POSSIBLE WAY TO END A 40 YEAR SAGA AND FAMILY LEGACY? So, Palps had a kid who had a kid. This kid is then deemed a-okay by the family that was affected most by Palps and they welcome her like the sunshine child she is, yet shun their own offspring for being damaged goods because he was being manipulated by said Palps. Okay, it’s official now, everyone’s an asshole...except Ben. He seemed to be the only one to understand his faults and right his wrongs and not be an idiot. Then the kid who was abused and manipulated is killed because “reasons” or “problematic” or whatever and the offspring of Palps lives while the family that Palps manipulated is ultimately gone forever because it’s last descendant wanted to save the offspring of Palps out of the goodness of his heart. Now the offspring of Palps doesn’t even give a flipping thank you and steals their name. wHaT a SaTiSfYiNg EnDiNg!!! Someone gag me.

8. Luke’s X-Wing being raised out of the water and it’s in perfect working condition. What. The. Fuck. I don’t know if you guys realize this, but this completely undermines Luke’s arc in TLJ. That X-Wing was sunk and dead to show that he had no desire to return to the outside world. He was staying on the island. For good. And he buried that thing in water to make sure he couldn’t use it ever again, but it was still visible to him to remind him of his conviction if ever he questioned it. But no. That thing is a-okay and ready to fly. No need for parts, there’s no rust or any sea salt corrosion, ready to go skipper! This was just added for easy call-backs to ESB but boy this had absolutely 0 weight to it. I literally yawned or looked at my watch around this part thinking “oh my gosh isn’t it over yet?” Pretty much sums up my entire experience.

9. Rose got shafted to appease the fanboys. This one needs no further explanation or analysis, it just sucks and has no real reason to exist.

10. Luke was barely in it and offered not that great advice. Poor Mark. His performance really peaked with TLJ and never went back up.

11. Rey is suddenly the Avatar now? You can now talk to all previous Jedi’s who existed? What buffoonery is this? Oh, but Ben doesn’t get a single. fucking. word. from Anakin, the man he looked up to. I’m so tired right now. What’s left?

12. The message changed from “it doesn’t matter if you’re a nobody, you’re a somebody to me” to “you’re a somebody with a bad bloodline, but that doesn’t define you (except when it totally does)”. That sort of message would be fine if it had been the message since TFA, but it wasn’t. The message since TFA was “I’m a nobody, but I can become a somebody regardless of my lineage or my childhood.” Why change the message in the 11th hour? To appease fanboys. Literally anything that makes no sense in this movie can be attributed to fanboys. There’s so much contradiction and hypocrisy in this film from both the narrative and the characters that it’s insulting.

13. Hux was utterly shafted too. What a waste of a well built up and conniving little bastard who in the end gets shot for shock value and laughs. It’s like what TLJ did but way worse because he’s actually killed. Hux as the spy? Just no.

14. Jannah was kind of wasted too, not enough screen time. I get her and Finn kind of bonding over being ex-stormtroopers, but it’s not really delved into. Also the whole “nature vs. machinery” thing kinda briefly shows up at the big battle and feels unearned too, because there was nothing before in this movie or others to suggest there was a war between the two.

15. Poe is treated more as the heir to Leia than Ben is. Poe gets to fly the falcon and gets to wreck it up (dishonoring who it belonged to before), gets to be by Leia’s deathbed, etc. Not earned at all.

16. The pointlessness of random cameos or thrown in references. Not a single person in my theater noticed John Williams as the bartender, nobody pointed out or said anything about any reference from previous movies, it was silent.

17. What the hell was even the point of the whole “Dark Rey” vision? Oh, she shows her scary pointy teeth ala Bilbo style. No thank you.

18. Why the hell does it feel like these characters aren’t the characters from TFA and TLJ? They feel so different and it’s noticeable.

19. Finn is Force sensitive. Literally tacked on like nobody wouldn’t notice. We noticed JJ. We notice everything.

20. Rey and Kylo/Ben fighting for way too much of the film and their interactions. Not enough caring or understanding, not enough longing looks, it feels like their romance was almost cut from the film entirely.

21. Oh yeah, Rey floating at the beginning? Looked stupid as hell. And the “Be with me” line? I thought maybe, just maybe, she meant Ben, but no. She’s trying to reach “her past selves” like the fucking Avatar and she’s even floating rocks around like Aang did. Ugh.

22. Anything else? Oh yeah, this movie sucks completely and wholly...FOR NOT GIVING ONE FUCKING LINE OF DIALOGUE TO BEN SOLO AFTER HE HAD BEEN REDEEMED. HOW HEARTLESS CAN YOU BE THAT YOU LET HIM DIE WITHOUT SAYING ONE FINAL THING?!?! DAMN J.J. YOU’RE STUPID.

And that’s it. Kudos if you read the whole thing. I ramble a lot.

[ceasarslegion]

So im making this young pre-OT Luke Skywalker playlist right now and it made me think about how many reddit-type fanboys think he's whiny and over-emotional

But I never really got that vibe from him. I mean first of all, he's 19 in A New Hope, and in his early to mid 20s in Empire and Jedi, and have y'all ever met a 19-25 year old who wasn't still a bit emotionally unstable? With everything he's been through, I'm actually amazed at how mature he is for his age. He could've easily cracked under all that pressure, but he grit his teeth and braced his feet and stood strong to the bitter end. And I recently watched the OT again for the 500th time in my life because I was showing it to my sister, and I didn't really see him complain all that much, and he definitely didn't whine.

Sure, he was a bit hesitant and freaked out his first time on the Falcon and it made him a bit jumpy, but he also like, just saw his parental figures brutally die, his childhood home destroyed, and in two hours he's making his first ever trip into space, cut him some slack. He was having a recordly rough day. I'd say that was just some light acting out from all that emotion he was forced to bottle up, and I REALLY don't blame him. Fuck man, I'd be catatonic if I were in his position.

Other than that though, I think people perceive Luke as whiny and over-emotional because he doesn't really fit into this hyper-masculine role that most other male leads fill in mainstream cinema. He's shown crying on screen in every single OT film for starters, which is extremely rare for a male lead. He's not super built or tall or toned or muscular, he's more of a short king with a lithe figure and this really soft face with a bit of meat on his cheeks. He's also not an emotional brick wall like men are kind of expected to be. You know what Luke's feeling at every moment because it's written all over his face and his body language, and he's open to a fault about it.

I think that's why he's perceived that way tbh. Luke is very antithetical to what the typical Hollywood male lead is expected to be, which in itself is a product of toxic masculinity. Men aren't allowed to be emotional outside of anger and stoicism lest they be mistaken for homosexual (homophobia is also a massive part of toxic masculinity, which I think is why I love the gay Luke interpretation so much; it just makes him this all-encompassing spit in the face of most if not all aspects of toxic masculinity). But Luke has this really wide emotional range that mostly leaves out anger and stoicism. Even in ROTJ when Palpatine is trying to tempt him over to the dark side, he SAYS he can feel Luke's anger and hatred, but you can't really see that on his expression. It's not stoic either, Luke's "anger" seems to come out as this hesitant conflict that gives him sad eyes, not raging ones like Anakin had in the prequels. Luke doesn't seem like he'd be capable of feeling genuine anger, honestly. And when he does snap in that fight with Vader, it feels more like a cornered mouse with nothing else to lose jumping at a predator for its life, not vengeful wrath. Luke only snaps like that when he absolutely has to and has exhausted all other options.

And another thing-he shows genuine affection and joy for his friends! And PHYSICAL affection!! He runs up to Han and Leia and Chewie just to give them hugs and smile with them, which almost never happens with mainstream male leads in films like these. They're always portrayed as brooding and tortured, but Luke lets himself be happy and show his friends how much he loves them, which is super rare in film.

I really love the healthy masculinity Luke is shown to have in the OT and I think that's also why I really hated his characterization in TLJ. It felt like they were trying to make him that brooding, tortured male lead when it just doesn't fit him. He wouldn't be crotchety and mean like that of he had to endure tragedy, he would be sad and hesitant to get close to anyone because he knows he can't close his heart off to other people even if he tries. He would hold Rey at an arm's length, not bear his fangs and actively shove her away.

Anyway, yeah. I think reddit fanboys see Luke as whiny and over-emotional because unfortunately, men have been so trained to be unemotional brick walls that seeing an average-looking man show actual, healthy emotion feels like being whiny and over-emotional at best, and a threat to their own masculinity as worst.

I just really love how healthy Luke's masculinity is though, I could write papers on it

[nitewrighter]

Was Darth Vader's redemption death better than Kyle Ron's? If so, why?

Yes. Holy fuck. Absolutely. Darth Vader’s redemption was lightyears better than that stupid fascist fuckboy. Let me ask you: What moment was the “light side turning point” for Kylo? It was Leia using the last of her strength to… I guess give him a series of flashbacks and tell him that he could return to the light? Which gave Rey the opening to stab him?? And then she healed him because… ?????? Light Side???? There’s apparently a romantic subplot because…???? they’re two physically attractive male and female white leads in close proximity to each other??? Force dyad???

But okay–Leia’s reaching out to Kylo through the force–HOW FUCKING DIFFERENT IS THAT FROM WHAT HAN WAS DOING IN THE FIRST MOVIE!? I had to watch TWO OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS IN FICTION DIE TRYING TO BRING A SHITTY SCI-FI DYLAN KLEBOLD BACK TO THE LIGHT SIDE. AND GOD, DRAGGING POOR HARRISON FORD BACK INTO THIS CLUSTERFUCK TO TRY AND MAKE THIS WRITING PASSABLE MADE ME WANT TO PUKE.

Okay okay. I’m calming down. I’m calming down. Rather than focus on how stupid and convoluted that final confrontation was, and how weak it was dragging Palpatine back into this series, I’m going to focus on Darth Vader. 

When Darth Vader turned to the dark side, he pretty much did so through a combination of 65% “I’m scared Padme’s going to die” and 20% “Palpatine is nice to me and the Jedi Council treats me like a child” and 15% “Obi-Wan’s off fighting General Grievous and he’s pretty much 90% of my impulse control so…” If the prequel trilogy gave us anything, it at least gave us that. And it also established Anakin Skywalker as a Chosen One who would Bring Balance To The Force. This is important.

 Because Palpatine is smart, he basically manipulates Anakin into throwing a shit ton of the Force’s power to the dark side for decades. But the Force isn’t necessarily about good guys win and bad guys lose, it’s about balance, and it inevitably course-corrects. So we get The Chosen One falling to the dark side, so now we have two sith, (Always two there are, Master and Apprentice) but then what happens? We get Light Side twins born! Luke and Leia! One is raised basically to be this strong-willed advocate for freedom and keep the spark of resistance alive against the Empire (The Dark Side), and the other grows up on the home planet of his father, away from the Jedi, the Sith, away from the war itself until it eventually kills his foster parents and burns his home. So now, Darth Vader doing all his dark side shit, has set his twin children on the path to oppose him! Force Balance, baby!!! 

So let’s fast forward to ROTJ–Luke and Vader are having their big confrontation while Leia and the Rebel forces are having their big Star War. And there’s actually a really interesting dynamic going on because like, Vader has made the offer to Luke before to join him, overthrow the Emperor, and rule the Galaxy as father and son. So Vader, at this time, is still going by the Sith playbook of “always two there are.” Luke doesn’t want to destroy Vader, because he had a vision on Dagobah that pretty much told him that destroying Vader would be destroying himself. Now, you could argue that this is the whole weak sauce “if I kill I’m just as bad as the bad guy!” trope but I don’t think it’s that. I think the Force told Luke, “Look, it’s STILL ANAKIN who has to bring Balance to the Force, and if you destroy him, then you become him.” Which was also Palpatine’s plan! Palpatine was sitting pretty and cackling because he figures, whoever beats who, he’s going to end up with the most powerful Force user in the galaxy under his thumb.

 So basically Vader does try to appeal to Luke, saying, “Oh joining the Dark Side is the only way to save your friends–especially your sister” and then it’s like this switch flips for him, “If you do not turn to the dark side, perhaps she will.” And this makes Luke go APESHIT–That same furious unstable love that gave Anakin so much power and edge is present in Luke as well, and Luke overpowers Vader and he’s standing over him! He could kill him! But he doesn’t! He goes right up to that brink and he stops. And he says “I am a Jedi, like my father before me.” And that’s this signal to Vader that Luke isn’t choosing the light side because it’s the easy path. He isn’t choosing the light side because “he has yet to understand the power of the dark side”–Luke had enough Dark Side power to overpower Vader but that wasn’t who Luke wanted to be and there was a light in Luke that he believed was still present in Anakin/Vader. Luke stood up to the Emperor and his own father’s manipulations and he stepped down from his own rage when Vader couldn’t. So right when Vader’s like, “Oh…. maybe my whiny blonde son actually knows what he’s talking about” that’s when Palp’s like “If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed!!!” and Vader’s like “Oh shit, I have to make this right” and he sacrifices himself to save Luke and kill the Emperor, hence BRINGING BALANCE TO THE FORCE. And then you have that final scene where Vader has his helmet off, and it’s Anakin and it’s heartbreaking–he’s this sad, scarred old man, and Luke says “I have to save you” and Anakin says “You already have.”

What worked so well about Vader’s redemption is that it was ultimately about Luke and (in a slightly more indirect way) Leia. It was about Vader making a sacrifice to save his family–when it was his fear for his wife and family that pulled him to the dark side to begin with. 

We had to see all of the original trio die for Kylo Ren’s punk ass. In the Last Jedi, Luke surrendered to the Force after using all of his strength to protect Leia and the Resistance from Kylo, who, may I remind you, was given the opportunity to walk away from the First Order after Snoke’s death, but Kylo was like “Nope. I’m Supreme Leader now.” Rey was like, “Hey maybe you can Not Be a Space Nazi now” and Kylo was like “Not happening. The job of Space Hitler has just opened and I’m taking it.” Vader was always Palpatine’s dragon. his enforcer. Palpatine was the one in charge. Master and Apprentice!! When Kylo killed Snoke and chose to be Supreme Leader of the First Order, he fulfilled the Sith law of the Apprentice eventually overtaking the master. The Rise of Skywalker didn’t have the balls to follow up on the strongest points of The Last Jedi, and that is why it was a convoluted sucky mess. “Oh the Force isn’t a magical thing that can come from anywhere! Rey’s a Palpatine! It’s all genetic!!! Also Vader’s sacrifice meant nothing because Palpatine’s still alive! Palpatine’s still alive because we, the writers, are incapable of recognizing that Kylo is way more compelling as an actual antagonist and we don’t have the time or skill to write a good antagonist! Yay!!!”

And then that movie had the gall to have Kylo running around in a pair of black pajamas pretending to be Han as if we, the audience, are going to forgive him for looking Han right in the eye and stabbing him. Fuck Kylo. Fuck his redemption. And fuck that weak ass horrific excuse of a romance they thought would justify this bullshit.

[twilightofthe]

Tell me ALL your SW faves

Aaaaaa thank you!  This took a while cuz this got long, lol sorry!  Aight, so here’s ALL my SW faves for this ask prompt list!

FAVE MOVIE: Revenge of the Sith.  10000%.  It just has everything!  You get to see the Obikin relationship in all its glory, first and foremost, how much those two loved each other more than anything and knew each other better than anyone, and just how much they genuinely got along and then we got our hearts broken watching them have to fight after Anakin made his Goof Of The Millennium and just oooooof all the feels about my boys!  Seeing Padmé and just loving her so gotdang much for being strong and wanting the best life for everyone, all while she was so scared and had so little support from anyone, and just couldn’t do it in the end.  Seeing the end of the Republic, how after a thousand years, just, *poof*, just like that in like two days (yes, I know Sidious was planning it for over a decade but still), the horrific fascination on how Sidious was able to do that.  Just the brilliance of Sheev’s character, how you despise him, but how brilliantly everything was pulled off.  The angst of Order 66, how especially after TCW you love these characters SO MUCH and then you gotta watch them DIE HORRIBLY BY THOSE THEY TRUSTED, THOSE WHO NEVER HAD A CHOICE EITHER.  Did I mention feeling so freaking bad for Obi Wan and his Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day???  Because I really do, he’s so good and kind and we see his life fall apart and ugh I love him.  And y’all, watching Anakin Skywalker fall from grace like the brightest angel he was, you hate him for what he did, but you still can’t help but love him and cry for him and his loss because he was so good, and he did not deserve all this to happen to him but he did it to HIMSELF AAAAGGHHHH.  Also, Obes and Ani were at peak prettiness this movie!!  Just asdfkjglkdskajsrlk best movie love so diggity dang much

FAVE PAIRING: Oh, how EVER will I choose– Obikin.  It’s Obikin, all the way, no contest.  I know I’ve yelled about it a million and one times so I’ll save y’all the rant on how much I adore these disasters and their relationship and how I think they’re goddamn soulmates and the most interesting dynamic in the entire Saga.  I ship them romantically and platonically and just everything, they’re so fucking important to one another and that’s why it hurts so much to watch them fall apart, and that’s why I’m so incredibly happy that they get to canONICALLY SPEND THEIR ENTIRE AFTERLIFE TOGETHER BECAUSE FORCE GHOSTS HELL YEAH.  If I had to pick just secondary fave romantic and platonic relationships, hmmmm that’s hard.  BUT, I’m gonna have to go with Kanera for romantic; SWR was what got me back into Star Wars and one of my favorite parts of it was watching Kanan and Hera, how much I loved them separately, but just how much they were a team together and I love them and I was unbelievably upset when Jedi Night happened (and I still have a rant about how animated Star Wars kills off their romantic couples in the exact same manner, pls ask me about how TCW’s The Lawless and Rebels’ Jedi Night had basically all of the same plot points that ended in killing off a romantic lead).  For other fave platonic relationship, gonna have to go with Luke/Han/Leia BROT3 (separate from Hanleia as a romance, which is probs my 3rd fave).  These disasters were the original Golden Trio, they saved the galaxy together all while yelling dramatically and having each other’s backs to the bitter end (or, at least ‘till the end of ROTJ lol) and I just love them as a team so dang much

FAVE TV SHOW EPISODE: Okay, since there are four TV shows, it’s only fair for me to pick one (or more don’t judge me) from each!  Let’s see, from The Clone Wars, my fave eps have to be the entire Mortis trilogy arc in S3 because Obes/Ani/Snips family dynamic, Force Shenanigans, BEAUTIFUL scene designs, Anakin angst, just so many good things oof, and also Dooku Captured from S1, which I just adore because Obikin snark, annoying Grandpa Dooku, Hondo Fucking Ohnaka making everyone look so bad at their jobs, I just love it agh.  Whoops that was technically four faves, so gotta do four for Rebels too!  Gonna go wiiiiith World Between Worlds from S4 for Badass Ahsoka Tano, Ezra being brave and talented, Sheev being Absolutely Ridiculous, and just the overall Force Shenanigans cuz canon time travel y’all; The Lost Commanders from S2 because Rex is awesome, Kanan angst, and really good Kanan and Ezra bonding and Jedi awesomeness, Fire Across the Galaxy from S1 because of Ghost fam dynamics, Kanan angst, more Kanan and Ezra bonding, and just good stuff, and Twilight of the Apprentice in S2 (lol what about my username?) for being creepy and cool and maKING ME CRY ANAKIN YOU STUPID THRICE COOKED TOILET SEAT LEAVE AHSOKA ALONE.  *cough*  Ok, fine, I’ll stick with only one ep for the other two series.  For Resistance, gonna have to go with the latest ep, actually!  We get to see Kaz being clever and caring about his fam on the Colossus, really cool designs for Aeos and its people, Tam angst, and just everyone shining!  For The Mandalorian, it’s gotta be the finale, Redemption, we get Din name, Armorer kicking everyones asses and me loving it, BABY YODA DOING THE HAND WAVE, Din getting over his issues with droids and connecting with IG only for IG to FUCKING DIE, DIN AND BABY YODA BEING AN OFFICIAL CLAN OF TWO, Taika just knocking this whole episode out of the park with the funny scouttroopers at the beginning who still deserved the ass-whooping they got for fucking murdering Kuiil and hiTTING BABY YODA YOU SLIMY FUCKNUGGETS–

FAVE CHARACTER: Alright, look, I can narrow it down to FIVE and that is IT.  I just love too many Star Wars characters, I can’t go lower than top five!  Ok, so my four favorites are Obi Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Leia Organa, Kanan Jarrus, and Finn Skywalker-Dameron-Tico (i SAID what i SAID.)  AIGHT so for starters, a lot of my favorite characters in different franchises fall under various archetypes I have for faves.  Obi Wan fits one of my more popular ones: “Old, reluctant and more than slightly-questionable parental badass with a mysterious past that makes you love them all the more when you realize just how beautiful and tragic and deserving-better they were when that past is revealed”.  I latched onto this dude from the start when I just liked the OT (tho Leia was always my fave lol), and I wanted to know about him, and then when I finally started getting into the PT and TCW, it was just a steady stream of “oh no he’s hOT?” “oh no he’s sAD?” “oh no he’s nICE?!? REALLY FUCKING NICE AND A BIT OF A MESS HELP” and then I just totally latched on because he’s hypercompetent at literally everything and looks damn good doing it and boy do I have a thing for competence, charming as all hell and goes through so much and comes out strong despite the fact that fate hates his fucking guts and tries to destroy his life constantly and guys he tries so hard and he’s kind of messy sometimes and a bit of a dick and I love him all the more for it because he’s trying, none of that do-or-do-not shit, he is doing his damn best and deserves happiness and not Anakin tearing him apart.  SPEAKING OF SAND MAN.  Ugh, so I love Anakin to fucking death and that makes me REALLY MAD ABOUT IT BECAUSE HE MAKES EVERYONE ELSE I LIKE SAD.  So I love Anakin regardless because he’s not your typical protagonist.  He’s fucking brilliant, hot when he fights, is amazing at fighting and flying and building stuff and there’s that competence thing for me again, oh boy!  He’s funny and kind and he cares.  And somehow, this bitch manages to have the two most beautiful, amazing people in the galaxy in love with him and willing to do basically anything for him like the fuck?!?  Jealous much??!?!?!?!  I am!!!!  He’s so fucking bright and it’s impossible to look away.  He’s also a dorky, messy disaster who’s not good with people or feelings or emotions and he panics over stuff and doesn’t know self-control and is kinda really bad at his job a lot and pushes away the people who care about him and screws up literally all the fucking time and he always feels like he’s drowning and alone and I get to watch him crash and burn under the weight of it all.  Basically, minus the anger issues and the child murder and the murder in general, I kinda relate a lot to Anakin.  I feel like a self-hating mess who doesn’t know how to control my ow head and the world hates me a lot too.  I can project my mental issues onto him, enjoy the good parts of him, live vicariously through the things he does that I can’t like be loved by pretty people and be hot and athletic and smart, and then when he crashes I can side-eye and remember that at least someone’s doing worse than me lol.  So yea, I love this messy boi to death and he’s the one I get the best characterization reviews on, so I guess we have an understanding.  Leia I loved since as a kid.  I’d want to be her, brave, talented, smart, strong as hell and snarky to boot.  I realize that Leia fits another fave character archetype of mine: “Powerful young adult raised for greatness, did not ask for all the horrible shit that’s happened to them, highkey wants a break and for the bad guys to just roll over and die, is generally clever, hypercompetent, and 100% done with everyone else’s shit, overdramatic as all hell and enjoys insulting people”.  Her and Han were my first Star Wars ship and she just always made me happy seeing her kick names and take ass.  She’s gone through almost as much hell or maybe more so than Obi Wan, she also keeps getting back up and fighting, she deserved SO MUCH BETTER than what the Sequel Trilogy gave her and you may quote me on that.  She’s also gorgeous and I wanted to wear all of her clothes (bikini not included).  I also love her relationship with Luke and I am so goddam happy it is now canon that Leia Organa did Jedi training and can use a lightsaber!!!  She has a lightsaber!!!!!!!!!!  Ugh oof I love her.  Kanan fills the similar “mentor” archetype as Obi Wan does, but with a smidge of youth because he’s younger when he gets dropped into this role.  He’s more of a punk, more of a mess, and oof.  Basically I’ve said it a zillion times how Rebels resparked my love of Star Wars, but really, it was Kanan on the screen that did it.  It happened when the Rebels season 3 premiere eps ended up on the TV and I saw it and I thought in order 1. holy shit that Maul fucker’s actually alive? and 2. Oh no sad blind Jedi man!  He’s cool and mysterious and I want to know why he’s sad and who made him sad and also want to give him a hug!!!  He was my fave character all throughout Rebels and his training dynamic with Ezra, struggling to help this kid all while flying by the seat of his pants because he had Issues and no clue what he was doing and no support and ugh, he was smart and brave and I’m so sad he’s dead and yea.  Finn!!!!  Last but not least!!!!  He was my favorite character from The Force Awakens.  People have said it before, but he was just so new, a rebel Stormtrooper stolen and brainwashed at birth, finding the good guys and fighting to do the right thing!  Possibly Force Sensitive!  Super duper cute!!!  Funny and kind, dammit, when not many other people in the galaxy were!!!!!!!!  I was so, so sure Finn was gonna be a Jedi along with Rey at some point, that might have been my biggest letdown when I saw TLJ, but ugh I just loved his enthusiasm and his war within himself, ultimately loving his friends and trying to do what was right at the risk to his own safety, even though that was why he ran scared in the first place!!!!!  I shipped him with Rey and with Poe and now I am NOT above the post TROS Jedistormpilot shipping!!!!!  Finn was just always the most interesting part of the Sequel Trilogy for me and I personally feel like they could have done more with his character.

FAVE ACTOR/ACTRESS: Aight, so I try my best not to “stan” anyone famous because literally no one is perfect and everyone’s done something problematic at some point and if I dare say I like a famous figure, someone’s gonna find something about them and come after me all “OMG THIS PERSON DID/SAID/IS X YOU MONSTER GO DIE!!11!!1″.  In terms of performance, I think all the actors in Star Wars did a lovely job and I’m happy with all of them!  If I had to crush on any, it would probs be Ewan McGregor, John Boyega, or Diego Luna cuz, uh, they hot.  If I had to pick one I liked most, it would honestly probs be Carrie Fisher.  Maybe that’s just partially from missing her now that she’s gone, but I really admire her advocacy and transparence for mental health, and she just seemed like such a funny, kind, strong person.

FAVE PLANET: Aight, this is HARD and I refuse to only pick one planet!  Ok, gonna start off with Coruscant because an endless city planet made up of lights is amazingly gorgeous and it has a Jedi Temple stacked on top of a Sith Temple and is just so cool aaaaa.  Also love Felucia just for being so bright and colorful and pretty.  Mortis for being just as weirdly gorgeous and also Weird Force Shit.  Lothal for the beautiful mountains, the wolves, and the fucking lightspeed center of the planet passage what, Dathomir is delightfully creepy to look at, Crait is really cool with the salt and the red and the ice foxes, Kashyyyk because Wookiees and it’s pretty and I love their treehouses.  Basically if it makes me clap my dumb monkey hands and go “oooh pretty!”, I love it.  The more “not like Earth” it is, the more I love it.

FAVE SPECIES: Hmmmmm, this is a tough one…….  There’s just so many cool-looking species that we know so little about, ya know?  I wanna say either Togrutas or Wookiees.  Togrutas just because the character design is incredible and so fun to work with and also I love Ahsoka, and Wookiees because they have such an interesting culture and backstory and also I want to give Chewbacca a hug.

FAVE CONCEPT: Uhhh, not quite sure I get the question; you mean like just story concept in general?  If that’s it, I’m gonna have to go with just the whole concept of the Force and the Jedi in general.  I mean George, George my man, what the fuck?  How the hell did you come up with this?!?  Mystical psychic space wizards with magic abilities to connect with and use the sentient godlike life force that combined the entire galaxy together.  Oh and also they have COLORFUL GLOWING LASER SWORDS?!?!?  It’s honestly one of the most creative things I’ve seen in popular culture, and that makes me sad that Star Wars now seems to be trying to separate itself from what I think is its most interesting quality because “ugh not EVERYTHING should be about the Jedi guys!”, when like, y’all, without the Jedi, the entire SW universe is basically just another military scifi war story……  Just my opinion tho.

FAVE SHIP: Ok, since pairing was already up there, I assume this means actual ship?  Well, uh, gonna have to be square with y’all, I’m a bad Star Wars fan for this part; I’ve never been the one to memorize ship names and designs and know the exact make and model number of some fancy ship, I’m real bad at that lol.  I’ll say my favorite ship is the Ghost.  Hera flies it and the Rebels Fam lives on it and it’s super cool and it makes me happy!

FAVE WEAPON: LIGHTSABER.  LIGHTSABER LIGHTSABER.  LIGHTSABERLIGHTSABERLIGHTSABERLIGHTSABERLIGHTSABER.  Y’all, c’mon, what did you think I was gonna pick? xD  Lizard brain want glowy shiny colorful big stick that goes whoosh!

FAVE BACKGROUND EXTRA: Again, not entirely sure what this means, but do you mean fave background character?  If so, then it’s a tie between Wilrow Hood and his ice cream machine for the memes, that one clone in TCW who yeets a plate of toast at Cad Bane’s face, or that one background soldier who scoots between Han and Leia arguing in ESB and also Hera and Kanan arguing in Rebels (yes I do headcanon it’s the same guy lol)

FAVE MOMENT/SCENE: This one’s actually pretty easy.  Anakin dying in Luke’s arms in ROTJ, and then his ghost showing up to Luke later at the Ewok party.  I just care so ridiculously much about stupid Anakin and his stupid story and mistakes, and even before I was a prequels stan and had only seen the OT (and wasn’t a huge Vader fan, believe it or not), some part of me just felt so solemn, so fragile watching this, watching the giant monstrous machine falling apart as he fades away to reveal a weary, tired old human man, and it always made me wonder, what the hell happened to him to turn him into that thing?  Seeing that young, beautiful man, basically Luke’s age, showing up as a ghost later, just the fascination, the tender look he shared with Old Ben, just how young he was, that made it all the more mysterious and knowing what I do now, it’s just so much better because my poor, horrible Disaster Man finally did the right thing and he finally found peace and it’s just the only ending I could be happy for Anakin with,  And Luke, I always felt so bad for Luke, being so strong, so brave, finally getting his father back for like five damn minutes and then having to lose him again and just hurting for him but also knowing that it was gonna be okay because Luke had more family now, the ghosts, and Han and Leia and Chewie and R2 and 3PO and Lando and everyone.

FAVE KISS: Luke and Leia (HANG ON LET ME SPEAK) forehead kiss in The Last Jedi.  I know (this one) isn’t meant as romantic, and I know the question is probs about a romantic one and I know that it’s not even a real mouth kiss.  But.  That Luke and Leia scene was my favorite part of the entire movie.  Again, I was missing Carrie a lot, and ugh, after all these years, after not getting to interact the entire previous movie and not at all during this movie, the ONE scene with Carrie and Mark and the pure emotion of it all just knocked me out of my fucking seat.  You could see how connected they were as siblings, how much Leia had missed Luke, how much he had missed her and how sorry he was for leaving, sorry for Ben, sorry for having to leave her again now, Leia knowing Luke was about to die, and just, acceptance.  Love and acceptance.  It was just a final, tender kiss on the forehead, and it was perfect and yeah.  If I do have to pick a romantic lip smooch, it’s probably the Hanleia classic “scoundrel” kiss in Empire Strikes Back.  I still remember watching ESB the first time as a KID and being all eeeeeeee are they gonna– YES they kissed they kissed they kissed finally! and that’s enough for me.

FAVE FIGHT: Obi Wan and Anakin on Mustafar in Revenge of the Sith.  WIthout question.  It’s brilliantly and precisely choreographed to show the intricate nuances of the Obikin breakup in alllllll of its painful glory.  It breaks my heart every time I watch it because every time I watch it I still hope it’s gonna end differently.  That Anakin realizes he can’t kill Obi Wan and ditches Sidious and goes back with Obi Wan to save Padmé.  That Obi Wan realizes he can’t let Anakin die and saves him from burning and from Sidious and takes him back too.  That Obi Wan at least puts Anakin out of his misery which would be godawful painful, but would save him from the horrid life as Vader.  That while they’re fighting, a lava monster appears like in the concept art and Vader and Obi Wan have to put aside their differences and fight the thing and remember how much they mean to each other.  But ugh, this fight was beautifully choreographed and was originally supposed to be a MULTI-MINUTE SINGLE SHOT WHAT THE HELL???  Oooof Hayden and Ewan did such an amazing job and the whole thing just rips my heart out every time in the bestworst way possible

 FAVE LINE OF DIALOGUE: Now THIS is hard, I’m not the best at picking favorite lines.  Hmmm, this is HARD.  Let me think.  Gahhhh, it’s hard because I have so many lines I like and I can’t even just narrow down a couple!!!  Ultimately, it’s probably gonna be Yoda’s monologue from Empire Strikes Back: “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter…”  Just that entire line saying how basically all of us are more than the sum of our parts, that everyone is their own sparkling light made of stardust, I loved it as a kid and I love it now. 

FAVE BOOK/COMIC: Answered here

FAVE HERO: Gonna go with Obi Wan!  I already rambled about why I love him, but y’all……. I love him.

FAVE VILLAIN: Anakin Skywalker/Darth McFucking Vader.  I loved him when he was a hero and the silly poor sad boy makes me sad when I see him as a villain all while being an overdramatic asshole and it just makes me wanna hit him with a newspaper for ruining his life and everyone else’s I love him.

FAVE OUTFIT: Answered here

FAVE CREATURE: I love Lothcats/Tookas!  I just heckin’ love cats and now there’s spACE KITTIES WITH SUPER FOOFY TAILS AND BIG EARS OMG Y’ALL I LOVE THEM I JUST REALLY DO AND I REALLY WANT ONE SO I CAN CUDDLE IT ;_;

WHEW.  That was all of the faves, thanks so much for asking me!!!  Sorry this took so long to do, this was kinda a hell week haha!

[legobiwan]

Can I just say I dislike hoe TlJ handled the Jedi. Like, I hate in general when people say Order 66 was necessary to "restore balance", downplaying the horrific genocide. When those texts got burned it should have been a very mournful moment, the Order's heritage being destroyed. And I was really uncomfortable with how Luke callously dismisses the Jedi, they had flaws but like EVERY groups does and they above literally every RL group I know of in benevolence Shit Luke barely knew their culture!

You may absolutely say that, anon!

Now, full disclosure, I don’t 100% agree but I know TLJ was a polarizing movie and that I am likely in the minority here. But! let’s hash it out :D

Order 66, to my mind, had nothing to do with restoring balance and everything to do with Sidious’s power grab and the destruction of the Jedi Order. Restoring balance to the Force was part of the Prophecy, which I personally, don’t put too much faith in. Yes, Anakin was powerful and a lynchpoint in the Force, to be certain, but the destruction of the Jedi Order was not compulsory to achieve this supposed balance. That was just a cavalcade of escalating tragedies and evil plans.  

Now, the texts being burned and Luke’s attitude toward the Order? That, I can more fully understand. The Jedi Order has a long, fascinating history but what does this mean to Luke? Luke Skywalker, raised on Tatooine, not even knowing he had any destiny until a chance of fate put two droids in his path and caused Obi-wan to finally make a move after 20 years in the desert. And Obi-wan may or may not have believed Luke was the Chosen One (a whole other issue there. I mean, I get it, Obes needed something to believe in after the shitstorm of his life and it seems like partial honoring of Qui-gon and desperation to lead Obi-wan to that conclusion, but I don’t think Luke was anymore chosen than Anakin. But Luke had the best chance to get through to his father, probably the only chance.) Okay, so Luke goes through all of this, goes through some rushed training, watches his evil Dad turn good for like, five minutes and then bite it. 

And then what? Everyone is dead except for him. How is he supposed to go on? What’s he supposed to do? So he relies on half-stories from Obi-wan and texts and attempts to rebuild the Order. Which fails spectacularly. Maybe because he’s trying to use a paradigm from before the Empire, even from before the Clone Wars that just…doesn’t work anymore. You have to adapt, even while keeping your principles. And I think it’s exactly because Luke didn’t know the culture of the Jedi, that he became so easily disenfranchised from it. Subtleties are missed in history books, and the galaxy is a different place after the defeat of the empire and the eventual rise of the First Order. What does Luke know of the Sith at first? Not much, which is fascinating given the complicated history. 

And the Jedi - well, while the war and Order 66 wasn’t their fault, at the same time, they failed to adapt on some level and I can really see Luke just getting fed up after Ben went apeshit and peacing out on the whole thing. He says, more or less, that the Order trained Vader, that Obi-wan had a hand in creating him. Not entirely true, but for Luke in his sadness, his general overwhelmedness - perhaps a justifiable viewpoint. 

Luke’s biggest issue is that he didn’t have info, he didn’t really know any Jedi beyond Obi-wan and Yoda (I think, I’m not 100% caught up on the comics of recent days, so correct me if I’m wrong here.) Now I know there have been rumors that Ahsoka will link up with Luke at some point during that period between RotJ and TFA but I personally hope that doesn’t happen. Ahsoka has her own shit to figure out and if she were around to give Luke advice, I can’t help but feel the sequels would have gone differently. Luke, to my mind in TLJ, is fresh out of fucks to give, he had the fate of the galaxy and an entire religious order (and his newly-found family) thrust on his shoulders, so I don’t blame him for getting a little bitter and fucking off to space exile and drinking blue milk like a madman. It was a lot to take in and I think he overdid it. 

[myevilmouse]

In Defense of The Rise of Skywalker

Or...how I learned to stop hating and enjoy a movie

Spoilers and random thoughts below the cut.

I hate the abomination that was/is The Last Jedi.  Let’s get that out of the way.  I’ve already explained the hundreds of reasons why, the biggest and most unforgivable being the character assassination of Luke “I call him Jake” Skywalker and the invalidation of every victory of the OT.  I resent this making people lump me into a “gatekeeper” sect, or accuse me of racism (Rose was annoying and ruined Finn’s heroism, jeopardizing hundreds of lives for her own selfish reasons without building up a convincing romance and blah blah etc).  It has nothing to do with her gender, race, or anything.  It has to do with poor character development and inconsistent motivations/messages. 

I’m also not a huge fan of The Force Awakens, mainly for its lack of originality and the treatment of Han/Leia, but otherwise I thought it was OK.  I liked Finn, wanted him to become a Jedi, found Poe to be a worthy heir to our antihero mold.  Rey left me indifferent and Kylo Ren was a temper-tantrum throwing teenager, but anyway...

Let’s keep that as background/context and not get bogged down.

Since they announced the title of this movie, I have been livid with rage. How dare they use my man’s name to sell their disgusting imitation of a beloved universe?  I was certain, ever since it was announced, that Rey would take Luke’s surname, despite having treated him so horribly in TLJ, despite having done nothing to earn it, despite having spent far more time with Leia, so if anything a Solo/Organa family name would make more sense.  It was just to sell tickets and I was furious.

I read all the spoilers.  Worst fears:  confirmed.  I looked at leaked photos.  I raged over the inanity of the plot and the sad conclusion to the Skywalker Saga, which in my mind will always end with ROTJ.

Still, I love Mark Hamill, and I decided to treat this film as a MH film. The completist in me required theatrical viewing.  Rare to get our man in a cinematic release.  So I went, ready to hate watch, prepared to dull the bitterness and betrayal with wine.

But….JJ Abrams directed a fix it fic.  And it’s good.  This film not just address the real injustices and horrible story decisions of TLJ, but also addresses some of the major problems of TFA too. 

I tried to go in with an open mind, but obviously I had many preconceived notions, and already knew almost every single story point and character beat.  I was ready to roll around in my hate and slam the abomination.  I want to emphasize that I am one of those people that was COMPLETELY prepared to hate EVERYTHING about this.

There are flaws. 

But there is so much that is great. 

I really really liked it. 

No one is more shocked than I at my own reaction.  I was ready/willing/wanting/primed to hate everything about this.  Please keep that in mind.  Hahah and no one is paying me to write this post 😉

I decided to write this because I also read all the negative critical reviews online from the pro critics yelling FAN SERVICE.  And I’m like…damn straight?  Ever since George Lucas made Han shoot second, fandom has understood that we understand this franchise better than film executives.  We aren’t concerned with adding an extra dewback or improving special effects.  We love these films the way we first experienced them, and they cannot and should not be “improved” to the ultimate detriment of the brand.

I’m here to tell you that the critics are not being fair.  The spoilers on reddit were true, but the movie works. Let’s accept, before we go further, that Abrams couldn’t entirely rewrite the mess that he stepped into/helped create. So I can’t defend the fact that Finn isn’t a Jedi yet or the mess that is the new Rebellion/failure of the old. I, like many fans, wish we had been given a different/better story from the beginning.  Sadly, we were not.

That is something we don’t have to accept (I certainly don’t consider these films “canon” in my mind—Mara Jade forever!) but let’s approach this film in the spirit it seems to be intended:  An attempt to address the very valid criticisms loudly voiced about the others in the trilogy, with the caveat that we are stuck with TFA and TLJ no matter how much we hate them.

First, the music is amazing, as we all knew it would be.  The acting is stellar.

Some of the things Abrams “fixed:”

“Rey is perfect/Mary Sue/good at everything”.  There is a conscious effort in this film to show her training, with Leia as her Master.  There is a good scene foreshadowing her final struggle, where she strains to hear the voices of Jedi past and fails.  There are several signs that she is not a Jedi yet, including how Palpatine talks about her, and perhaps my favorite, when she tells Leia she hasn’t earned Luke’s lightsaber.

Me: Damn straight you haven’t.

And Leia AGREES, keeping Luke’s weapon because Rey isn’t ready for it. She’s still learning.

Further proof of her non-Jedi status, when Rey is killed, she doesn’t join the Force.  She is a corpse.  On the other hand, Ben Solo, once redeemed, disappears as we would expect a good Jedi to do.  A clear distinction between the two of them.

And speaking of Leia:

Leia’s character:  TFA and TLJ Leia is weak and sends other people to fight, whereas our brave Princess from the OT is volunteering for suicide missions, grabbing weapons from the hands of her rescuers, and running into danger for a good cause.  It always bothered me that she didn’t go after Kylo herself (or with Han).  In this, we see her as a Jedi Master, training Rey, with her own lightsaber.  Leia is once more a badass, true to her character.  A legitimate Jedi who also joins the Force (although not sure why it took her so long post-mortem, that was weird).

Luke’s character:  Hello, I am A LUKE FANATIC.  The biggest sin of TFA and especially TLJ was this idea of Luke hiding out and becoming the disgusting, pessimistic coward he was shown to be.  Abrams ignores this pretty much entirely, starting with the revelation that Luke was actually going on missions with Lando to hunt for a Sith artifact to help the Rebellion.  Luke kept notes, he was busy and ACTIVE.  He wasn’t giving up; he was leaving a trail to help anyone who followed.  The best ‘fuck you’ in the whole movie was Luke catching Anakin’s lightsaber when Rey throws it away.  The ultimate rejection of his TLJ characterization.  

Luke’s conversation with Rey echoes very much the ROTJ “you must confront Vader” conversation.  There are many echoes of ROTJ but given the restrictions on what we are working with, I accepted this parallel.  Much like Luke had to face his unfortunate inheritance, so must Rey.  It’s not terribly original, but these films aren’t.

I also loved the simple line “I was wrong” when Rey asks why he did what he did in TLJ.  This to me is simply “Rian Johnson was wrong/The Last Jedi was wrong.”  There is no excuse that is acceptable, but this is a filmmaker acknowledging an injustice, and I appreciated it.  (Did I mention these films are not canon for me? They aren’t, just giving credit for this attempt.)

Han’s character:  I hated SO MUCH how they turned Han into a failure in TFA.  A buffoon, not even a good smuggler anymore, a failure as a father, a husband.  When I heard he was going to be in this I was like HUH?  But this “memory” of his father that Kylo Ren sees after Rey heals him and departs, after he’s lost his mother, is another attempt to redeem the injustice to Han’s character.  Han is the one in the movie who brings Kylo Ren back to the Light, not Rey.  It is a very short scene, but effective.  The acting is poignant, with the “Dad” working for me.  Maybe I’m a softie.  But I appreciated this brief proof that Han Solo, in the end, didn’t suck as a father, and ultimately, even as a hallucination, inspired the love that saved his son.

Chewbacca got a medal:  I said Abrams was fixing things in the sequels, but I admit I was choked up to see this fixit from A New Hope.  Finally Chewie gets the medal he is LONG overdue.

Team dynamic with the new characters:  Finally we understand why these people care about each other.  They go on shared adventures, they have banter (and some good jokes, not the stupid bathos of TLJ), and there is finally some sense of camaraderie that was discarded in TLJ.  There are several references to Rey’s “new family,” clearly referring to this band of Rebels, and it was far more compelling than in earlier films.

Finn’s Force Sensitivity:  I, like many, desperately wanted Finn to be a Jedi.  Since TFA, it seemed inevitable!  I loved how he used the lightsaber, how he seemed to have Force abilities (that were never really explored).  TLJ ignored that potential completely, sidelining him on that stupid Canto Bight quest and pulling him away from Rey.  There are so many signs that he is destined to be a Jedi in this film, I was thrilled to see them.  Knowing things without explanation, doing amazing things, sensing things, trusting his feelings, it’s another ‘fuck you’ in my opinion, to RJ for ignoring this former stormtrooper’s destiny in favor of overblown set pieces and pointless CGI theatrics.  When he says, towards the end “I can feel it,” I wanted to fist pump.  YOU GO BE A JEDI FINN!  THE FORCE IS WITH YOU.  Personally, I would have loved for Finn to be the main protagonist of all three films, but I appreciate us getting what we got, since we can’t get what we want.

Stuff that worked:

The Wedge cameo:  Yeah.

Lando:  Wonderful. His dialogue, especially at the beginning, does a lot to fix our view of Luke.

Kylo’s redemption:  See above re: Han.  I’ve seen a lot of criticism about the kiss.  I get the whole “female character’s purpose is to validate the evolution of the male” criticism, but I want to point out a couple things about this. First of all, it’s not a “Reylo” kiss. Kylo is gone.  This is well after Kylo is redeemed.  He’s been of the Light for a while before this, it’s clearly Ben at this point.  It’s also obvious Rey knows that, and like Luke forgave Vader for his abuse, she forgives Ben Solo for his.  So I understand also the criticism that is making people puke about Rey kissing her abuser, but again, Luke sheds tears for the father he loves, who maimed and traumatized him.  Star Wars is about redemption and forgiveness that accompanies it, and I don’t have the same issue with this.  If she kissed KYLO without him being redeemed before he died, for example, I would be disgusted.  This is not that.

The cinematography/pacing/story:  So many critics and the spoilers made it sound like this was a convoluted mess.  I went to see it with a non-native English speaker and neither of us had any trouble following the plot.  Yeah, a lot happens, but it all is linear and consistent within the film.

The humor/dialogue:  Felt way more Star Wars-y and better placed than the last two films.

The Jedi Helping Rey:  As much as I thought I would hate this, it was really well done, largely, I think, due to the foreshadowing during her earlier training.  When Palpatine says all the Sith live in him and we know what she’s gonna say but it still works SO WELL.  I was rooting for her and I’ve never been a huge fan.  But at that climactic moment, I was a believer.

Major flaws

Of course there are some.  For me the most major:

A Jedi Strikes Not In Anger: In every single lightsaber battle (pretty sure, I only saw the film once), Rey is the first to strike.  She always seems to be fighting from anger and with negative emotion.  This is not at all Jedi-esque and I found it particularly jarring in her duels with Kylo Ren.  This bothered me more than almost anything else in the film because it is never addressed.  She fights ANGRY and she fights FEARFUL and then somehow when she’s supposed to strike down Palpatine, she has it in her to resist.  This, above all else, makes me not like her as the “heir to the Jedi”.  I thought it was a real problem, and makes her ultimate evolution at the finale less convincing.

Rey Skywalker:  I get why they did it, but I stand by my earlier thoughts regarding taking the Solo or Organa name.  I have nothing against adopted families.  And I found it SLIGHTLY more palpable because since the Emperor refers to Ben as “the last Skywalker” and then since he transfers his entire life force into her, you can argue that she has “Skywalker” literally in her spirit now.  OK fine.  But I still don’t really think she earned it.  She came CLOSER than I thought she would and I didn’t ultimately want to burn down the cinema as I expected I would want to.

Force Resurrection:  No. Just no.  This changes so much and makes so much of the earlier films moot. Why wouldn’t Anakin just resurrect Padme?  Don’t get me started.

Other random new Force things:  Like Force Ghosts touching shit.  Yeah I know Obi Wan sat on the tree in Dagobah, I know, but we keep learning new and more powerful Force shit each film.  Teleportation of objects (that lightsaber?!), astral projection, rapid healing, and now playing catch with your ghost friends.  I get they are important to the story but it feels lazy.  But my exception here was Luke catching the saber because FUCK YOU RJ. 😊

Redemption=Death:  I wanted Kylo Ren to die for his sins too, but I recognize this strange thing we have going on in the GFFA that if a baddie goes good they die.  It’s the equivalent of the horror movie “fuck and the killer gets you” trope.  I didn’t necessarily mind Ben dying, but it seemed … lazy.

The final shot:  It was a mistake to even touch this iconic moment.  It wasn’t earned.  Make your own legend/iconic moment and leave my farmboy his.

Something no one can fix:  The sucky destinies of Luke Jake, Han, and Leia.  They didn’t live happy lives, they didn’t see the end of tyranny, they all died with only the hope of success.  I will never forgive the attempted destruction of the legacy of the OT (attempted cause it’s still how it all ends in my world), this disregard of the triumph of the Rebellion over the Empire, and I will never believe that the New Republic failed so completely and miserably.  Bring on the EU/Legends and forget this shit.

Final thought:  I went to this expecting the cinematic equivalent of a back alley abortion and instead I got what felt like an apology.  An entertaining and polished and sincere apology.  We deserved better, and I think the people who made this film realized that and did their best.  TROS had to wrap up something that was divisive and imperfect and misguided, and tried as hard as it could, in my opinion, given what they were working with.

It was a good movie.  Ambitious, with flaws, but I am glad I saw it, and I hope you will be too. <3  May the Force be with you.

[brotherskywalker]

I forget, sometimes, that I still live in a world where people think Han/Leia is the epitome of romantic and not really toxic and poorly written.

And then I see those “I love you./I know.” matching t-shirts, or pillows, or see someone reblog something somewhere and I just remember it all over again. I mean, it’s not R*ylo levels of toxic, to be sure, but it’s far from a healthy or romantic courtship, and yet everyone thinks it’s the most epic and romantic scifi romance ever.

Look: Han spends the entire first two movies basically belittling Leia, badgering her and wearing her down while she--during a war, mind you!--constantly, endlessly turns him down and tells him to leave her alone and go away, which he never does. He never takes her no for an answer. He never stops pursuing her, despite her going so far as to kiss another man to get him to back the fuck off. He still doesn’t take the fucking hint that she’s Just Not That Into Him. He has this whole twisted made-up delusion that she’s secretly in love with him, despite us having no evidence to suggest that that’s the truth.  It’s gross and creepy as fuck.

And then he basically kidnaps her from the fleet and strands her alone on the Falcon with him for who knows how long, forcing her into a situation where she has to be wholly dependent on him and that’s when she finally breaks and clings to him, because he’s worn her down and she has no one and nothing else. Worst of all, this works and Han gets rewarded for all his toxic treatment of her. (Great message that sends to the fanboys watching about the ways to win a woman’s affections, right?) And when she finally says “I love you” when she thinks he’s about to die, he doesn’t even say “I love you, too.” No, he’s too fucking cool for that. He’s gotta rub it in her face.

It’s fucking disgusting and it makes me really sad that more people don’t see it. He’s a nice guy by the end of RotJ (I think, personally, because the writers/etc. started realizing what a toxic asshole he was), but I’m so glad they separated by the sequel trilogy.  Also, soft canon loves to keep pushing how cool and edgy Han still is, how he’s neglectful and into drinking, and running around the galaxy doing his own shit instead of being home with Leia. He didn’t really get less toxic in RotJ, he just mellowed a bit once he’d won the “chase.” Soon enough, he got bored and went back to his shitty ways.

[niniane17]

About the TROS ending...

I can't believe I'm saying this, but here we go:

Kylo Ren aka Ben Solo Organa (yes he has both last names, you can't change my mind unless you propose Ben Organa) should have lived at the end. I'm not the biggest fan of Reylo and I didn't want them to be together, but once the movie took all the trouble to show Ren's redemption and his romance with Rey, snatching it away in less than two seconds felt like a cruel trick aimed to please the anti crowd (who, surprise, hated this movie nonetheless because it wasn't the Kylo Ren hatefest they expected).

If the movie was committed to tell a tragic story about how you can't really fix things no matter how you try, it would be one thing, but JJ Abrams wants to have his cake and eat it too, and I have no respect for this attitude. This finale is not committed to anything: it doesn't condemn the potentially toxic Reylo narrative, and in fact, it confirms it (yes the Reylos were right all along: Rey truly did help Ben redeeming himself. Like it or not, this is canon), but it doesn't have the gut to actually follow it through. What's the point, then?

Poor Rey isn't even allowed to be a little bit sad about Ben's death, she has to be all happy and chirpy because:

1. That's what happened in Rotj and it doesn't fucking matter if the context was all different and the characters were different and their journeys were different.

2. It wouldn't be "feminist", because feminism is all about women not having human emotions. Like, we have spent two movies watching Rey trying to redeem Kylo Ren, and now that she's finally managed to and he dies, she feels nothing about it? She just "kind of forgot"?

Again, I was not a fan of this particular storyline, I find it toxic and trite, but once it was there I treated like a legitimate part of the story and now I feel disrespected. It frankly reminds me of a stupid justification Benioff gave about Jaime and Brienne's ending, when he said that "It was better that way because Brienne is too good for him and he doesn't deserve her". Nope, I don't buy it, if you truly believed it you wouldn't have framed their story the way you did. You wanted to milk the characters' dynamics for all their worth because you knew people liked it and then you decided to kill it to "subvert expectations" and as a fanservice to those who didn't. It's dishonest.

And, by the way, all the movie theatre felt the same disappointment that I did: there was a collective "GASP!" the moment Rey and Ben kissed, followed by a quick groan immediately afterwards. I doubt everyone in that room was a Reylo shipper. Even hearing "Rey Skywalker", a line that should have made me cry, rang hollow.

So yes: this finale is shitty, and it's shitty precisely because Kylo Ren dies that way. That's the price of destryoing a character's arc because a few people didn't like them.

This trend of "subverting expectations" can't die soon enough and fast enough. Let's go back to tell stories that actually make sense and fulfill their narrative purpose.

[ageofgeek]

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

SPOILERS UNDER THE READ MORE!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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