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2019/12/23 19:30:30
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
Lance845 wrote: But it doesn't need Rey to have lineage to do that.
I would argue that.
Without any special lineage, how does Rey keep pulling new powers out of her nether regions with ZERO training, ZERO guidance, and ZERO experience?
Being of the lineage she's from gives her an excuse to do so. Granted, it's a pretty darn limp excuse, but an excuse nonetheless. With NO excuse you're just trampling all over two trilogies worth of precedent where even the Chosen One needed training to do much of anything with the Force.
1) Lets just put the prequels in the trash where they belong. But first, you're wrong, Anakin did a lot with the force, like Pod Race and win. Or fly a ship into a droid mothership and destroy it. Anakin force uses all over the place constantly.
I'll grant you that much.
He doesn't beat Darth Maul at the end of his first movie. Indeed, his first battle with a Sith ends with him losing a hand. Rey, on the other hand, beats Ren and does it easily in TFA. She mindtricks a stomrtrooper in the same movie (no sign of Anakin doing that in TPM), ON TOP OF her unexplained piloting prowess the first time she hops into the Millennium Falcon. which I suppose is the equivalent to Anakin surviving (much less winning) pod races and his accidental jaunt in a starfighter.
2) The movies tell you. The force balances itself. When a great darkness rises, the light rises to meet it. Plus, Rey exists in a world where stories of Luke and the Jedi resurface as positives and everyone is telling them. She knows about General Lando, and Princess Leia, and General Solo and Luke Skywalker. Which means she hears stories about the force. If the light rises to meet the dark and she is just throwing gak at the wall to see what sticks then thats what she does.
So why didn't the Force take a more active role in balancing the great light of the Jedi Order for the thousand years of history we're told of in the films? I mean, darkness takes power and within two decades there's Luke. Then you get a couple more decades of light, darkness rises again and Rey's RIGHT THERE. I would have expected The Force to take a MUCH more active role in balancing the Jedi Order instead of leaving things alone for a full millennia.
3) Again, Luke does a bunch of gak in the moment when he needs to without much or any training. He hit those wamp rats with his T-16 despite seasoned fighters calling it impossible. He spends a week tops on the Falcon as his only training getting shot by a ball droid but manages to sink the torpedo into the Deathstar. Before he meets yoda he learns how to force pull his lightsaber into his hand. Who taught him that? Everyone in starwars always does gak for no good reason.
Ah... Luke says "WE used to bulls-eye womp rates back home". Not "I". "WE'. Thus implying Biggs used to do it as well, likely along with his other unseen friends from Tosche station. I suppose that could mean the lot of them were unconscious force users, but since strongish force users seem pretty rare during the Empire...
Besides, 2 meters is pretty darn BIG. That's six-and-a-half feet. That's an area likely larger than YOU are, standing tall with your arms spread out. That's not all that much smaller than a WWII tank, and yet we have records of hundreds of them being taken out by bombs during the war - and that prior to any sort of guidance systems. In short, it's well within the realm of human possibility.
Although I'll grant you, getting the torpedo to make the right-angle-turn to go down the shaft, THAT was impressive. But even then one could argue Force Ghost Ben was guiding his hand and did the actual turning. You know, since TROS has established force ghosts can interact with physical objects...
And for that matter, it's not unlikely that given that, Ben helped with the lightsaber pull.
By the same logic, Rey also did absolutely nothing with the force, it was all the other force ghosts teaming up to do it for her, of course....
CHAOS! PANIC! DISORDER!
My job here is done.
2019/12/23 20:03:04
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
If you are asking why didn't the dark side rise to meet the light I would argue that it did and we started the story in the wake of their victory. And it's not like the Sith were not around getting stronger and stronger during the time the Jedi were active. Remember, the force isn't saying we need to balance the politics in the galaxy. Just the power of the light and dark. Sideous and Plagus were powerful in ways that the combined might of many jedi never were.
2 Meters is pretty fething small for a ship traveling at starships speeds with precision lasers or guiding an exact torpedo down a shaft without hitting a wall and detonating early.
You could argue that force ghost Obiwan did it sure. But then as you say, Rey was just being guided by Ghosts too. So those arguments just negate each other. If you are going to pretend that Rey did her things, then you ar pretending that Luke did his. And the ones feats are not more impressive then the others.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/23 20:04:38
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
2019/12/23 23:10:15
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
LunarSol wrote: When Anakin is randomly the only human capable of podracing, no one said, "how can he do that without any training!" only to be placated by the "chosen one" nonsense later in the film. We all went "ooo, its cause he's strong in the Force" because no one had these fits until Rey.
an aweful lot of the "issues" people are having with these movies is what I call "Fan signaling" where people in an attempt to "prove" how much of a fan they are, go and bash something new in their franchise. I find a lot of the complaints with the new SW movies are essentially "fan signaling" where folks go out of their way to find problems with the new movies in a misguided attempt to "prove" how big a fan they are.
the complaints about Rey's herritage are the perfect example. SW has always had an element of important backgrounds and heritages. That has never changed. Now ROS has changed, subtly, the way we will, going into the future view the saga
Spoiler:
In that now really the trilogy of trilogies deals with the skywalker and palpatine families
I agree with that (and have no issues with it) so yeah Rey being a nobody woulda been dissappointing, as early as before TFA released it was widly accepted she had to be someone, because thats how SW worked so yeah seems a strange complaint.
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
2019/12/24 00:34:45
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
Although I'll grant you, getting the torpedo to make the right-angle-turn to go down the shaft, THAT was impressive. But even then one could argue Force Ghost Ben was guiding his hand and did the actual turning. You know, since TROS has established force ghosts can interact with physical objects...
Not sure why people have so much trouble with this, but that had nothing to do with the force (it was also a parabolic trajectory, not a 90 degree turn):
BrianDavion wrote: an aweful lot of the "issues" people are having with these movies is what I call "Fan signaling" where people in an attempt to "prove" how much of a fan they are, go and bash something new in their franchise. I find a lot of the complaints with the new SW movies are essentially "fan signaling" where folks go out of their way to find problems with the new movies in a misguided attempt to "prove" how big a fan they are.
I'll admit that I am guilty of the opposite kind of "fan signaling" in which I seem to go out of my way to embrace and try to find as much to love about new Star Wars as possible.
Even TLJ, which I initially was disappointed with, is a movie that I watch again and again (especially now that RoS has added context to the things I was disappointed about and therefore I am no longer as disappointed)
That's probably a big reason why I am so quick to defend RoS. Its friggin STAR WARS, so to think any of it, even the prequels, isn't good (enough) will somehow mean a lifetime of fandom would be wasted for me.
I'm an "all or nothing" kind of fan. It's all canon so I'm gonna find ways to like, if not love it.
And IMO, RoS makes that choice very easy for me.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/24 02:16:23
3) Again, Luke does a bunch of gak in the moment when he needs to without much or any training. He hit those wamp rats with his T-16 despite seasoned fighters calling it impossible. He spends a week tops on the Falcon as his only training getting shot by a ball droid but manages to sink the torpedo into the Deathstar. Before he meets yoda he learns how to force pull his lightsaber into his hand. Who taught him that? Everyone in starwars always does gak for no good reason.
The difference is that you see Luke actually struggle. He needs his wingmates to help him during the battle, he nearly crashes his X-Wing into the Death Star, you see him get zapped by the floating probe while he's practising the deflection, he has to get saved by Obi-Wan in Mos Eisley when Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba pick a fight with him, etc. etc. etc. The fact that you actually see him struggle is what makes his rare moments of exceptional ability actually feel like they've been earned, whereas Rey never struggles with anything ever. She gets thrown into a tree hard enough to be knocked unconscious and still beats Ren in their first encounter, flies the Falcon like an absolute god, somehow manages to not only resist but actually reverse Ren's mind probe, and that's all just in the first god damn movie. Rey's character is so lazily written it's painful.
That's probably a big reason why I am so quick to defend RoS. Its friggin STAR WARS, so to think any of it, even the prequels, isn't good (enough) will somehow mean a lifetime of fandom would be wasted for me.
-
That is some pretty spectacular sunk cost fallacy right there. I have a really hard time seeing any franchise from that perspective. Presumably, what drew you to Star Wars in the first place was either the quality of the OT or the few diamonds in the rough that existed in the EU, so why settle for less than what got you into it in the first place? By looking for things to love to validate your passion for the franchise, you're basically telling the content creators that minimal effort is fine. Like as long as X-Wings and TIE fighters are blowing each other up on screen, you're good, and that sounds absolutely bonkers to me.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/12/24 03:52:46
2019/12/24 04:53:41
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
LunarSol wrote: When Anakin is randomly the only human capable of podracing, no one said, "how can he do that without any training!" only to be placated by the "chosen one" nonsense later in the film. We all went "ooo, its cause he's strong in the Force" because no one had these fits until Rey.
That... isn't vaguely true. The prequels and especially TPM were heavily criticized at the time (and after, and still), including that exact thing (and that whole sequence in general).
RedLetterMedia basically only exists today because their 8+ hours of raw hatred for the Prequels actually resonated with people.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/12/24 04:54:47
Efficiency is the highest virtue.
2019/12/24 04:59:26
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
I do definitely remember people hating on Anakin's entire character in TPM. In fact, people hated on his character for the entire Prequel trilogy because his character is awful. It's really only after a decade of comics and books handling him much better than I think anyone has anything nice to say about his entire existence.
LordofHats wrote: I do definitely remember people hating on Anakin's entire character in TPM. In fact, people hated on his character for the entire Prequel trilogy because his character is awful. It's really only after a decade of comics and books handling him much better than I think anyone has anything nice to say about his entire existence.
that and there's something new to hate on. fact is the prequals suffered from the bane of unrealistic expectations. let's face it... they where NEVER gonna meet fan expectations
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
2019/12/24 06:00:35
Subject: Re:Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
3) Again, Luke does a bunch of gak in the moment when he needs to without much or any training. He hit those wamp rats with his T-16 despite seasoned fighters calling it impossible. He spends a week tops on the Falcon as his only training getting shot by a ball droid but manages to sink the torpedo into the Deathstar. Before he meets yoda he learns how to force pull his lightsaber into his hand. Who taught him that? Everyone in starwars always does gak for no good reason.
The difference is that you see Luke actually struggle. He needs his wingmates to help him during the battle, he nearly crashes his X-Wing into the Death Star, you see him get zapped by the floating probe while he's practising the deflection, he has to get saved by Obi-Wan in Mos Eisley when Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba pick a fight with him, etc. etc. etc. The fact that you actually see him struggle is what makes his rare moments of exceptional ability actually feel like they've been earned, whereas Rey never struggles with anything ever. She gets thrown into a tree hard enough to be knocked unconscious and still beats Ren in their first encounter, flies the Falcon like an absolute god, somehow manages to not only resist but actually reverse Ren's mind probe, and that's all just in the first god damn movie. Rey's character is so lazily written it's painful.
That's probably a big reason why I am so quick to defend RoS. Its friggin STAR WARS, so to think any of it, even the prequels, isn't good (enough) will somehow mean a lifetime of fandom would be wasted for me.
-
That is some pretty spectacular sunk cost fallacy right there. I have a really hard time seeing any franchise from that perspective. Presumably, what drew you to Star Wars in the first place was either the quality of the OT or the few diamonds in the rough that existed in the EU, so why settle for less than what got you into it in the first place? By looking for things to love to validate your passion for the franchise, you're basically telling the content creators that minimal effort is fine. Like as long as X-Wings and TIE fighters are blowing each other up on screen, you're good, and that sounds absolutely bonkers to me.
I chalk up her incredible piloting ability to an attempt to please the hardcore fanboys, tbh, as well as her swordfighting ability. Compared to the prequels/various tv serieses the duel between Rey and Kylo was amateur hour, but can you imagine if they actually looked like two complete novices swinging at each other after the level of cinematic swordfighting spectacle on display in all the prequel films?
Same with the millenium falcon. Outside the canon here, they flew the falcon like that because the fanboys needed to see sexy shots of sweet space ship flying action with the millenium falcon in the trailer. That wasn't establishing Rey and how badass she is, that was establishing that this was a freaking star wars baby, we got the star wars we got the CGI space ships pew pew laser beams! Can you imagine if the piloting spectacle was only on the level of the OT after the space battle that was the opening of RoTS?
And as for Rey unrealistically defeating a dude who'd been shot in the gut fifteen minutes earlier by a weapon that had instantly killed everyone it shot at previously in the film....I mean....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3n13fSTCKE
If anything, my problem with the duel between Kylo and Rey is that they did TOO MUCH to justify Rey winning the duel such that it undercut any threat Kylo posed as a main villain. Kylo (and the new empire in general) get one scene in the beginning of the movie where they get to be big badasses and then they go back to being the easily defeated buffoons that every bad guy has been in every star wars movie since new hope. If the OT hadn't had Empire in it, they would have had an identical problem, but they took a whole movie to establish that the empire was this overpowering military force.
We establish that Rey can resist Kylo's use of the force. We establish that he's arrogant, sloppy, easily angered and distracted, overconfident. We give him a massive physical injury just before the scene, and remind the viewer of it multiple times during the scene. We have him very nearly lose to a dude with basic stormtrooper combat training who has been mostly comic relief so far in the film.
The kylo fight in TFA is like if instead of Darth Maul being this totally unknown entity we see him in the background getting continuously thwarted and getting mad at battle droids for comedy beats and before fighting Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan he barely overpowers jar jar.
IMO, The Last Jedi would have worked really well for the series if not for Rioun Johanneson's basically only being a comedy director. you NEED a victory for the audience to get hooked in the first movie, but then you NEED to have a down-note film that establishes the bad guys as a credible threat, and TLJ really honestly tried to do that but undercut it way too much with comedy beats making the bad guys still look like fools and yet more comedy beats making it look like the heroes were tripping over their own shoelaces rather than failing to overcome a massive threat.
I think Johnstone was just so used to directing films where the foil of the protagonist is the environment or their own foolishness that it accidentally bled into the editing of the movie. The "bombing run" sequence was a very good setup for what could have been a solid theme for the film - the heroes' own heroism is costing them because they're fighting harder not smarter and sacrificing too much to try and stop the empire, and the empire still has vast resources - but then it fell flat because too many times the heroes' efforts failed because of their own general stupidity.
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
2019/12/24 13:45:35
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
the_scotsman wrote: I chalk up her incredible piloting ability to an attempt to please the hardcore fanboys, tbh, as well as her swordfighting ability. Compared to the prequels/various tv serieses the duel between Rey and Kylo was amateur hour, but can you imagine if they actually looked like two complete novices swinging at each other after the level of cinematic swordfighting spectacle on display in all the prequel films?
I've seen plenty of really cool looking fights where one fighter is severely outclassed by another. Not to mention that Kylo shouldn't be a novice by any stretch - wounded, severely injured, but a novice? No way.
Think of it like the Count Dooku vs Anakin/Obi-Wan fight in AotC - Anakin in particular behaves like a novice, charging straight in. He gets taken down by Dooku in seconds.
The fight could have been enhanced very well by Kylo clearly showing superior skill, but being hobbled by his injury. In return, Rey is inexperienced, but not as badly hurt. You could end up with a situation where Kylo is hammering blows down at Rey, but can't advance quickly enough to properly rush her down and capitalise on her inexperience. Cue a Falcon-Ex Machina (similar to the Falcon showing up in ANH and saving Luke by dealing with Vader), where Rey escapes, and Kylo is forced to block a barrage of shots from the Falcon as she escapes barely.
Same with the millenium falcon. Outside the canon here, they flew the falcon like that because the fanboys needed to see sexy shots of sweet space ship flying action with the millenium falcon in the trailer. That wasn't establishing Rey and how badass she is, that was establishing that this was a freaking star wars baby, we got the star wars we got the CGI space ships pew pew laser beams! Can you imagine if the piloting spectacle was only on the level of the OT after the space battle that was the opening of RoTS?
Then don't have Rey pilot it - have a different scene, with something like Rey and Finn stuck on Jakku, escaping the First Order's TIEs, the ship gets blown up in front of them, and they get on a different ship (not the Falcon), something perhaps like the skimmers in TLJ. They get in, Rey demonstrating skills in the skimmer, but her evasion isn't doing a whole lot of good. Then, the Falcon can come down from the sky, shoot down the TIEs in much the same sequence, and land in front of the skimmer. Rey and Finn get aboard, and are greeted by Han and Chewbacca, who are far more associated with the Resistance (unlike what we actually got), and got contacted by BB-8 sending an emergency broadcast.
Film continues largely as before, with Han teaching Rey how to fly the Falcon.
Basically, a lot of the issues of nearly all the sequels come down to poor execution and inconsistent tone, characterisation, and narrative structure IMO.
They/them
2019/12/24 13:55:13
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
I don’t know if this has already been mentioned, but I want to just add my 2 cents to this discourse.
I personally have no issues with any of the plot decisions really. What I mean by that is, it’s fine for Rey to be what she is, all the stuff with Snoke, Palpatine, etc.
My biggest issue? The really bad structure and pacing. The first half is really difficult to follow, as it overloads the massive amounts of information onto you and basically ret cons everything in Episode 8. For one, this is extremely unfocused. For another, it doesn’t really make for an organic growth to the story told in the trilogy.
The main plot picks up about an hour in, but it’s tough for the story to get going with so little time to do so. Then the final act, things just happen and are introduced with little prior buildup. There are far too many new plot points, many of which aren’t very fleshed out at all, and many things are left unexplained.
My own thoughts are that much of what was introduced in the beginning should’ve been introduced in the end. And they should’ve focused maybe on a few plot points, rather than throw in so many plot points at people. It’s very incoherent.
My criticisms, and I feel like many people’s criticisms of 9, are very much at the actual writing and structure rather than the lore and/or actual plot decisions. Only my 2 cents though.
2019/12/24 14:52:44
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
Lance845 wrote: But it doesn't need Rey to have lineage to do that.
I would argue that.
Without any special lineage, how does Rey keep pulling new powers out of her nether regions with ZERO training, ZERO guidance, and ZERO experience?
Being of the lineage she's from gives her an excuse to do so. Granted, it's a pretty darn limp excuse, but an excuse nonetheless. With NO excuse you're just trampling all over two trilogies worth of precedent where even the Chosen One needed training to do much of anything with the Force.
Luke trains her on the island in Ep8. It seems fast bc it all happens in a single movie but we don't know how long she is there. More importantly, she has trained with Leia between 8 & 9 for some unknown amount of time, likely several years at least.
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the_scotsman wrote: I chalk up her incredible piloting ability to an attempt to please the hardcore fanboys, tbh, as well as her swordfighting ability. Compared to the prequels/various tv serieses the duel between Rey and Kylo was amateur hour, but can you imagine if they actually looked like two complete novices swinging at each other after the level of cinematic swordfighting spectacle on display in all the prequel films?
I've seen plenty of really cool looking fights where one fighter is severely outclassed by another. Not to mention that Kylo shouldn't be a novice by any stretch - wounded, severely injured, but a novice? No way.
Think of it like the Count Dooku vs Anakin/Obi-Wan fight in AotC - Anakin in particular behaves like a novice, charging straight in. He gets taken down by Dooku in seconds.
The fight could have been enhanced very well by Kylo clearly showing superior skill, but being hobbled by his injury. In return, Rey is inexperienced, but not as badly hurt. You could end up with a situation where Kylo is hammering blows down at Rey, but can't advance quickly enough to properly rush her down and capitalise on her inexperience. Cue a Falcon-Ex Machina (similar to the Falcon showing up in ANH and saving Luke by dealing with Vader), where Rey escapes, and Kylo is forced to block a barrage of shots from the Falcon as she escapes barely.
Same with the millenium falcon. Outside the canon here, they flew the falcon like that because the fanboys needed to see sexy shots of sweet space ship flying action with the millenium falcon in the trailer. That wasn't establishing Rey and how badass she is, that was establishing that this was a freaking star wars baby, we got the star wars we got the CGI space ships pew pew laser beams! Can you imagine if the piloting spectacle was only on the level of the OT after the space battle that was the opening of RoTS?
Then don't have Rey pilot it - have a different scene, with something like Rey and Finn stuck on Jakku, escaping the First Order's TIEs, the ship gets blown up in front of them, and they get on a different ship (not the Falcon), something perhaps like the skimmers in TLJ. They get in, Rey demonstrating skills in the skimmer, but her evasion isn't doing a whole lot of good. Then, the Falcon can come down from the sky, shoot down the TIEs in much the same sequence, and land in front of the skimmer. Rey and Finn get aboard, and are greeted by Han and Chewbacca, who are far more associated with the Resistance (unlike what we actually got), and got contacted by BB-8 sending an emergency broadcast.
Film continues largely as before, with Han teaching Rey how to fly the Falcon.
Basically, a lot of the issues of nearly all the sequels come down to poor execution and inconsistent tone, characterisation, and narrative structure IMO.
Let's watch this fight, blow by blow, and see how it isn't exactly what you want. it's only 3:00 long, after all.
The lightsaber jumps past Kylo and to Rey. We established earlier in the film that Kylo has basically never been opposed by someone using the light side, which makes sense. Rey shuffles for a minute with the saber, and is carefully holding the saber well away from her when she turns it on. Kylo by contrast flicks on his saber and spins it close to his body.
Rey's first swing completely misses, second swing is parried by Kylo, and third swing misses and hits a tree. We cut away for a little bit of lightsaber waving, and the first thing we see when we cut close is rey throw a wild stab, which Kylo again deflects into a tree. Kylo flourishes, chopping down a large tree that lands behind Rey, and the camera cuts.
Kylo then chases rey into a little enclosed ravine, where Rey blocks a few of his swings then turns and runs. Kylo swings at her, misses, and grunts in frustration as she gains distance while he only advances at a walking pace.
Kylo catches up to her and makes three more swings. Rey blocks the first and second and again retreats on the third, which throws Kylo off balance and he stumbles while she runs away a few more steps. Rey takes another swing and Kylo blocks it, and Rey again makes another sound of frustration and exertion while Kylo is silent. We get a wide shot, a few notes of the imperial theme play, and Kylo chases Rey from the left side of the shot to the center, still with Kylo at a walking pace and Rey running. There is a rumbling noise and part of the forest collapses behind Rey, she looks back and then we get yet another wide shot of Kylo pursuing Rey from left to center with minor key music. Kylo stabs, Rey blocks it with a frightened sound, and the lightsabers clash as Kylo pushes her back to the edge of a cliff.
Now we get a few more frightened noises and the line "You need a teacher! I could show you the ways of the force!" from kylo. He very clearly could finish the fight right here by pushing her one more step back, but he does not. Rey closes her eyes, clearly evoking the "I am your father" sequence with Luke dangling in empire and the same music playing. Rey opens her eyes, defiant, and jumps down with an angrier noise than she made before. Kylo pursues again. Rey rains down a series of wild overhead swings, which again clearly echoes a classic moment from the OT fights with Luke giving in to his anger and overpowering vader. She cuts a bit of Kylo's cloak, and he stumbles back.
He stands from kneeling, clutches his side where Chewbacca shot him, and swings wide. This time Rey waits outside the range of the blow, and this time her stab lands. He stumbles back, and Rey throws a telegraphed overhead blow, which Kylo easily blocks, but she then kicks him to the ground. Kylo gets up again, they have another contest of physical strength, and then Rey lets go and strikes his lightsaber out of his hand, and the fight ends with a "Deus Ex Earthquake" separating the combatants.
I've had at-length conversations about this fight with a friend of mine who is a huge broadsword fencing enthusiast, because it is his favorite part about the movie. He complained that movie swordfighting is about conveying to the audience the emotional interplay between two opposing characters and that the prequels, for all their amazing choreography often obscured those moments of emotional messaging because they were so heavy on displays of technical skill. Mike Stoklasa in his episode 1 review encompasses it perfectly talking about the fight with Darth Maul. All the elements were there outside the fight: Maul was powerful, but angry and too eager to prove himself. Qui-gon takes a moment to center himself while Maul paces back and forth, agitated that the fight was interrupted by a weird...series of glowy, unexplained laser walls. Obi-wan sees his master get killed and he gets pumped, jumping into the fight with emotional vigor and determination to get back at Maul. But the second the swords actually start to clash, it's right back to technically perfect, emotionally detached swordplay.
The Kylo/Rey fight shows that off perfectly with their technique. Rey respects the weapon she's holding, holding it carefully and away from her at all times. Her attacks are wild, telegraphed, and she is throwing unnecessary strength behind every blow, exactly like someone would who has been in plenty of fights where life or possessions were on the line but always with a blunt weapon, not with a weapon that's deadly in its own right. in the first half of the fight, before he starts to tire, Kylo keeps his weapon tight to his body and is not afraid to spin it towards him and past his face and body. Kylo actually blocks, moving his sword away from him very little and directing blows away from his opponent's body. Rey just meets swings with opposite swings and actually turns her back and runs several times, and we see multiple instances where Kylo can't end the fight only because he's moving at a walking pace - whether from the injury, or because his plan is not to kill Rey but instead to fight her to a standstill and convince her to surrender and join him like he tries at about 1:45.
Kylo's injury is re-established before the fight, we see that he's done something to stabilize himself but it's failing, and he's losing blood. He pounds on his chestplate to try and stop himself from bleeding, and when the fight turns 2:15 into the 3:00 long fight, he re-establishes the injury again by holding his side while making a wild swing.
Anyone who characterizes that fight as "Rey easily defeating Kylo because Muh Mary Sue" is doing one of three things.
1) not watching the fight closely at all, and possibly taking someone else's interpretation of it as their own simply because of which two characters fight and which one wins
2) being deliberately dishonest to try and construct a narrative, or
3) accustomed to the level of technical skill displayed by the characters in the prequels, video games and other star wars media and interpreting Kylo's "trained, but overconfident and injured" performance as "uncoordinated buffoon".
To me, this fight clearly reads as someone who has been trained but has very little experience in combat with someone using a similar weapon or of respecting his body's limitations while losing blood, versus someone with no training with the particular type of weapon they're using but plenty of low-tech hand to hand combat experience. Heck, the definitive turning point is practically identical to the episode of Firefly where Mal has to fight a duel and wins by pulling a cheap bar room brawl trick. Kylo blocks an overhead swing and Rey kicks him right where he's been shot.
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
2019/12/24 16:39:04
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
Lance845 wrote: But it doesn't need Rey to have lineage to do that.
I would argue that.
Without any special lineage, how does Rey keep pulling new powers out of her nether regions with ZERO training, ZERO guidance, and ZERO experience?
Being of the lineage she's from gives her an excuse to do so. Granted, it's a pretty darn limp excuse, but an excuse nonetheless. With NO excuse you're just trampling all over two trilogies worth of precedent where even the Chosen One needed training to do much of anything with the Force.
Luke trains her on the island in Ep8. It seems fast bc it all happens in a single movie but we don't know how long she is there. More importantly, she has trained with Leia between 8 & 9 for some unknown amount of time, likely several years at least.
Actually we do, unlike with ESB there's no ambiguity - Rey is with Luke for a maximum of three days, possibly just two. The entirely of TFA and TLJ take place in like, two weeks of "real" time. RoS having a definitive 1 year time skip, which Rey spent training vigorously with an actual Jedi, combined with the lineage thing are some of the few things on-screen in RoS that are unquestionable improvements on the rest of the STIMO, since even with JJ "feth it" Abrams' breakneck, hamfisted, poorly explained ass-pulled new force powers, it's at least an attempt to show that Rey's power is, if not earned, then at least explained, rather than just being 100% fresh-queezed Yass Kween.
God this whole affair has been such a missed opportunity. The whole Sith Eternal idea is cool. The TIE Daggers are cool. Even the Sith Troopers are pretty cool, though I still can't stomach the Sequels tacticool weapon designs. And at this point, I've read about a dozen fan-made synopses that take the core, basic blocks of the Sequels and make something genuinely awesome out of them, and it really does just seem like Kennedy and the Story Group are either such hacks they really couldn't come up with anything better than some random on sodding 4chan, or they just didn't give a gak.
Like, imagine;
Not-TFA features the fall of Ben Solo and the rise of the First Order, a fringe group of extremist ex-Imperials out on the fringes of the fractious-but-functional New Republic. The Republic doesn't consider them a real threat because, realistically, they aren't - they use old Imperial surplus gear, they're modest in size, don't claim much territory, and what they do claim is fairly worthless to the Core worlds. Ben/Kylo kills Han - who is not a worthless deadbeat who sold Luke's war medal for booze money, yes, that's actually a thing in nucanon, feth you Pablo Hidalgo you bitter old hack - early on, maybe even in flashback, but this time instead of just having him be a petulant emo who chimps out when he doesn't get his own way, have his rages be the result of him tormenting himself with hallucinations of his dead dad - used sparingly, but repeatedly through the film. The Resistance is formed by Leia to combat the First Order both because she has more foresight than a lot of her colleagues, but also because for her the conflict is personal - she wants her son back. They end up using old surplus Alliance gear because it's cheap(this gives Disney and JJ the Rebels vs Imperials aesthetic they so desperately wanted). The First Order becomes a genuine problem for everyone by the end of the movie not because they've got another ridiculous Deus Ex Superlaser and eighty-five-kajillion ships and troopers and all-new gear from somewhere for reasons, but by using the Rebellion's tactics against the Republic except without any scruples whatsoever, launching a vast wave of hit & run terror attacks against civilians and infrastructure alike - their goal is not to conquer, but to take violent revenge against those who spurned the Emperor. Meanwhile Luke, who is semi-retired having re-established a small but successful New Jedi Order who are spending most of their time reflecting on what they want their role to be in the post-Empire world, elects to take on one last Padawan when he discovers(via meditation or spies or whatever) a young girl on Jakku who's incredibly strong with the Force - this is pitched as him seeking redemption for his failure to steer Ben back to the Light.
Not-TLJ could have the Resistance and the Republic trying desperately to contain the First Order's mad rampage(that has been going on for a couple of years between movies), while Luke and his young apprentice continue her training and investigate rumours of a dark conspiracy behind the rise of the First Order. Retool the first act of TRoS so that it's less contrived(for reals, the Sith Dagger that's engraved with the location of the Death Star wreckage and has been carved to line up with an exact piece of that wreckage at a specific angle from a certain spot which just happens to be the spot they stand in is...ugh) and less frenetic, dump the "and now they have ONE MILLION SUPERLASERS!" garbage, keep the Forcetime/dyad stuff between Rey & Ben/Kylo, build the story up to a final confrontation on Exogol where it's revealed that DUN DUN DUN the dark spirit of the Emperor survived the destruction of his body in RotJ and has been 4D chess-ing everybody using the Snokeclones and various corrupted New Republic/corporate officials, with the First Order being a ploy to both keep everyone off-balance while the Sith Eternal completes construction of his fleet(using resources that are explicitly stated to have been squirreled away during the Empire, rather than pulled out of his ghostly arse), and to prime the civilian populace for his return by sowing such terror that he can present himself as a saviour when he returns and offers them the safety and security-for-liberty tradeoff once again. Luke, Rey and the gang confront Snoke-Palpy and Kylo, who reveal Rey's dark origin, and Luke sacrifices himself Obi-wan style to allow the others to escape when it's clear they're vastly outmatched.
Not-TRoS timeskips another couple of years, the galaxy is at war; the Eternal Fleet(sod Bioware's rubbish, it's a cool name) shreds the First Order apparently without effort(not hard considering Palpy can just order them all to one place via a Snokeclone and then wreck their outdated gear by ambush with his shiny new Daggers and Imperial IIIs and Redtroopers), Palpatine reveals himself as their leader and asserts that the Empire has returned, and between his carefully orchestrated appearance as a saviour from a threat the ineffectual New Republic couldn't stop, the return of some ex-Imperial warlords and remnant forces to the fold, and his evil corporate allies/dupes, the new Eternal Empire controls about a third of the galaxy, while the Republic struggles to weld its disparate regional and planetary defense forces into a unified whole to oppose them. After BTFO'ing the First Order, Kylo and his elite troops go after the Resistance, who have become a symbol to the less organised Republic military forces, decimating them and killing Leia. Killing both his parents and watching his old master die at the hands of the Palpy-empowered Snokeclone, combined with Rey's influence via Forcetime warring with Palpatine's attempts at mental dominance, finally cracks him and he gets a subplot of crazy-with-grief-to-redemption. In the background of the film, the Eternal Empire makes more and more gains, and more and more worlds begin to willingly surrender themselves to it. The Big Damn Heroes, now joined by a redeemed Ben, find out Palpatine is planning some kind of heinous evil ritual to restore him to a proper body and launch a desperate attack to try and prevent it. When they arrive, Palpatine's unrecognizable burned and ragged puppet-corpse does the gloating badguy speech - he's known about Rey & Kylo's Force Dyad all along, he orchestrated it, he leaked the intel about his ritual because them being there is what will make the ritual work, by draining their unique power he can restore his physical form. Blah blah, thunderbolts and lightning, Kylo sacrifices himself to give Rey the chance to turn the Emperor's lightning back on him, and the Emperor's death/their inspirational tale(the redeemed son and the Palpatine who rejected the darkness standing together for freedom and justice etc) provides the final catalyst for the Republic to beat back the Eternal Fleet. In the end, Finn & Poe etc end up overseeing the Republic's efforts to deal with the feuding remnants of the Eternal Empire, while Rey goes back to help run the New Jedi Order and we get a final scene of her training some younglings while Luke, Leia, and Ben's force ghosts look on approvingly.
You got your nostalgia bait. You got your OT actors killed off. You got your Puppetmaster Palpatine. You got your Rey Who Saves The Day. But it also has some semblance of respect for the OT characters, and it builds the new characters up to match them rather than tearing down the older characters to make the new ones look better by default. And that's a synthesis of, like, three ideas I've read now, out of a dozen and more decent ones. Seriously how on earth did they manage to feth it up so badly?
"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal
2019/12/24 17:14:21
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
Probably because everything sounds better in a quick summary directly contrasting it to things people have decided are bad.
Also:
"Yodhrin, the guys at finance really really love your vision we really do, and we really want to help you execute it! We just have the tiniest bit of feedback from initial focus group testing that we think will make this really just, you know, scream "star wars" to people. And we think it's Death Star. When we polled the white male middle age demo about Star Wars the fourth associated word they said 62% of the time was death star, so we really just need you to work that in, mmkay?"
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
2019/12/24 17:22:05
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
the_scotsman wrote: Probably because everything sounds better in a quick summary directly contrasting it to things people have decided are bad.
And? The point is that it's possible to make the basic building blocks of the Sequels sound good, Lucasfilm just failed at it.
Also:
"Yodhrin, the guys at finance really really love your vision we really do, and we really want to help you execute it! We just have the tiniest bit of feedback from initial focus group testing that we think will make this really just, you know, scream "star wars" to people. And we think it's Death Star. When we polled the white male middle age demo about Star Wars the fourth associated word they said 62% of the time was death star, so we really just need you to work that in, mmkay?"
So, your counterpoint to them failing is to just state one of the reasons for the failure as if it was inevitable? Yes, they played it safe, then they over-corrected, and then they over-over-corrected, none of those decisions had to happen, and their failure of imagination is not an excuse for their failure of imagination.
"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal
2019/12/24 17:35:07
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
Not inevitable in an absolute sense, but inevitable in the sense of: if you want a hundred million dollar star wars spectacle film trilogy and Lucas doesn't want to make another pet project, it's not going to be an "auteur" film. It's going to have to contend with finance drones who don't care about what's in the movie, only that people go see it.
From finance drones standpoint, the new trilogy was a huge success. It allowed them to establish a new generation of fans, made them a bunch of cash, and they got in and got out without creating an expensive cast of primary actors they have to keep including and paying more and more in each movie. Fan backlash probably even helped them - Daisy Ridley, Mark Hamill and the others are probably 10000% done getting heaps of death threats on the daily.
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
2019/12/24 17:41:57
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
LordofHats wrote: I do definitely remember people hating on Anakin's entire character in TPM. In fact, people hated on his character for the entire Prequel trilogy because his character is awful. It's really only after a decade of comics and books handling him much better than I think anyone has anything nice to say about his entire existence.
that and there's something new to hate on. fact is the prequals suffered from the bane of unrealistic expectations. let's face it... they where NEVER gonna meet fan expectations
They easily could have. People were expecting the dashing adventures of 20ish Anakin and 40ish Kenobi as they romped through the clone wars and a slide into darkness. Incoherent economic politics, a child actor and the most insane attempt at a love story since the modern remake of Romeo and Juliet (punctuated by justifying mass murder as the clinching scene of the romance!) weren't invited or wanted.
Given that the Clone Wars cartoon was very popular among people who hated the prequels, it's really, really easy to see the story they could have done that absolutely would have met fan expectations.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/24 17:55:30
Efficiency is the highest virtue.
2019/12/24 19:03:30
Subject: Re:Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
the_scotsman wrote: Let's watch this fight, blow by blow, and see how it isn't exactly what you want. it's only 3:00 long, after all.
Sure thing, I'll spoiler it for length, and make my comments within the spoiler!
Spoiler:
The lightsaber jumps past Kylo and to Rey. We established earlier in the film that Kylo has basically never been opposed by someone using the light side, which makes sense. Rey shuffles for a minute with the saber, and is carefully holding the saber well away from her when she turns it on. Kylo by contrast flicks on his saber and spins it close to his body.
Yup. agreed, no complaints. He clearly looks comfortable with the weapon, and she seems full of trepidation.
Rey's first swing completely misses, second swing is parried by Kylo, and third swing misses and hits a tree.
And here's where we start to disagree on what's going on in terms of the energy of the fight. Initially, Rey charging in feels very amateur, very unwieldy. Kylo's dismissive one handed block is good, showing his contempt. However, him backing away, and turning his back to her is not a good indicator of his control/dominance in the scene. Rey drives him back, he spins away as she hits the tree.
Ideally, Rey would charge in, get blocked away, and then Kylo would either continue blocking and holding her in place there, or begin a riposte/counter-offensive and begin to push her away.
But instead, within about 4 swings, Rey has driven Kylo away. Not a great start for him.
We cut away for a little bit of lightsaber waving,
The cut-away actually really messes with the geography of the fight, and switches the power dynamic. The last close shot we had was Kylo running away and Rey advancing on him, but now, we have him pushing against Rey and forcing her back on the defensive - the problem is, with a wide shot like this, the energy is robbed, and any weight of Kylo's counterattack is lost. However, he is definitely overpowering her, even if it's robbed of tension by the camera.
and the first thing we see when we cut close is rey throw a wild stab, which Kylo again deflects into a tree. Kylo flourishes, chopping down a large tree that lands behind Rey, and the camera cuts.
Yes, a much better section! Kylo actually pushing back, and Rey vocalisations make it clear she's in a weaker position, and not in control of the fight. Unfortunately, for me, the prior camera change, and the tension it robbed, remove a lot of the power from this scene. Had Kylo not backed off in the first few blows, and we went straight to this, I'd be much more agreeable.
Kylo then chases rey into a little enclosed ravine, where Rey blocks a few of his swings then turns and runs. Kylo swings at her, misses, and grunts in frustration as she gains distance while he only advances at a walking pace.
Kylo advancing here is good, I very much like that. However, Rey's deflections feel almost too accurate, too "correct" - I would have preferred her to fumble a fair bit more, but her actually going for the run to disengage is very good. She shouldn't win this by fighting, she should win by trying to put as much distance between her and a wounded enemy as soon as possible.
Kylo catches up to her and makes three more swings. Rey blocks the first and second and again retreats on the third, which throws Kylo off balance and he stumbles while she runs away a few more steps. Rey takes another swing and Kylo blocks it, and Rey again makes another sound of frustration and exertion while Kylo is silent. We get a wide shot, a few notes of the imperial theme play, and Kylo chases Rey from the left side of the shot to the center, still with Kylo at a walking pace and Rey running. There is a rumbling noise and part of the forest collapses behind Rey, she looks back and then we get yet another wide shot of Kylo pursuing Rey from left to center with minor key music. Kylo stabs, Rey blocks it with a frightened sound, and the lightsabers clash as Kylo pushes her back to the edge of a cliff.
This is a good section here. Rey is still blocking a bit too "well" for my liking, and I don't think her swings should be phasing Kylo (like one where she cuts through a tree as she runs). But, overall, her having her lightsaber almost dragging, and her looking behind herself as she faces Kylo are good ways to show her lack of control and power in the fight.
If the whole fight was like this, I'd like it a helluva lot more.
Now we get a few more frightened noises and the line "You need a teacher! I could show you the ways of the force!" from kylo. He very clearly could finish the fight right here by pushing her one more step back, but he does not. Rey closes her eyes, clearly evoking the "I am your father" sequence with Luke dangling in empire and the same music playing. Rey opens her eyes, defiant, and jumps down with an angrier noise than she made before. Kylo pursues again. Rey rains down a series of wild overhead swings, which again clearly echoes a classic moment from the OT fights with Luke giving in to his anger and overpowering vader. She cuts a bit of Kylo's cloak, and he stumbles back.
And that's why I don't like it. I'm not keen on the whole "lets freeze frame here while I meditate for a bit and gain some power!" feel. This should have been where Falcon-ex-Machina in my proposal comes in. Rey has lost, and only intervention from a third party saves her.
Her aggressive swings, like the first few swings of this fight, should not be phasing Kylo and causing him to back off. Rey going on the offensive with Kylo having to crouch to take the blows and make noises of exertion switches the power dynamic, and I simply don't think that should be happening at all at this stage in the fight.
He stands from kneeling, clutches his side where Chewbacca shot him, and swings wide.
I actually think he's clutching where she's just hit him. Obviously, he's not been gutted, but he might not be sure of that, and instinctively goes to hold that part.
This time Rey waits outside the range of the blow, and this time her stab lands.
A stab I don't think she should make. It feels far too precise, too controlled, and more importantly, too dominant in this fight. Rey should not be winning this fight IMO.
He stumbles back, and Rey throws a telegraphed overhead blow, which Kylo easily blocks, but she then kicks him to the ground.
Again, because she's a novice fighter in this regard (she is competent with her quarterstaff, but this isn't a quarterstaff), I don't think she should be doing this kick.
Kylo gets up again, they have another contest of physical strength, and then Rey lets go and strikes his lightsaber out of his hand, and the fight ends with a "Deus Ex Earthquake" separating the combatants.
And cutting his face open. The fight literally ends with her not taking a scratch, standing tall, and having defeated Kylo not by avoiding his power by tiring him out or outpacing him, but overpowering him with a weapon she's never used before. That's why I've got a problem with it. We get a bit of slow motion, and the dynamic of the fight changes completely, Rey immediately goes on the offensive but unlike earlier, Kylo is not in control. Why? Not really a reason, beyond "hero gotta hero", which is not a trope I particularly like.
Like, I'm comparing to other kinds of things in Star Wars where happens, and I don't really think of any quite like what Rey does. Phantom Menace - Obi-Wan does his whole fight with Maul after Qui-Gon dies, and gets booted off into the pit. He wins not because he outclasses Maul or through force of will, but through taking advantage of Maul's lack of awareness. He exploits a weakness. Rey does not, because Kylo's weakness (his injury) has not changed in any way since their little slow-mo. Attack of the Clones - Anakin picks up two lightsabers to defend Obi-Wan on the ground. Count Dooku is still very much in power, taking a few steps back, but pushing again within seconds, and cuts a lightsaber clean in half. The movement between the two feels like both are trained, hence more lateral and sideways movement, rather than sheer push-pull fighting, and Dooku never even makes a single vocalisation, even as he wins. Revenge of the Sith - After Obi-Wan goes down against Dooku, Anakin goes on the offensive. However, he is very much not an amateur (shown by how he isn't just rushing in like the last encounter), and is clearly showing more skill, as well as aggression, which Dooku explicitly notes makes him stronger. Anakin wins because of improved skill, and being capable of channeling power from the Dark Side (something that is made explicitly clear). New Hope - Isn't really a scene of this happening with a lightsaber battle. Empire Strikes Back - In most of the scene vs Vader, Luke is getting deflected by precise blocks and pushed back almost constantly after every bout. His first real blow against Vader comes without even using his lightsaber, redirecting a natural obstacle (a gas/smoke leak) into Vader's face, which barely hinders Vader. However, Luke is still very much not an amateur, and does push Vader down from a platform - however, he doesn't immediately go and turns the whole fight around. Again, note that Vader hardly even swings at Luke, instead blocking and toying with him - far unlike Kylo, who is swinging aggressively and pushing hard. Immediately when they next fight, Vader is completely in control, with Luke barely getting any chance to fight back - and this is Luke after a good deal of training. The only blow Luke gets in a glancing blow after he gets a small second of anger for Obi-Wan when Vader taunts him, and then runs off (still giving Vader dominance in the fight), and is disarmed (and dishanded) within seconds. Return of the Jedi - Luke is largely in control in the whole fight, because of even more training. He is only temporarily beaten back when Vader takes advantage of Luke's mercy and throws a lightsaber at him. But, Luke takes back control, because of superior skill, and giving in to the Dark Side (which we are explicitly told he is doing, and told in the same scene that it gives him power).
Compare all of these to Rey. In all of the above, the hero is actually somewhat trained and experienced, but when they are outclassed, they are nearly always defeated (the exception being Obi-Wan, who is defeated, but is able to take advantage of Maul's arrogance). We are also shown and told explicitly in the scenes that when they *do* win, it is because they are channelling the Dark Side, which gives them strength. This does not happen with Rey, who gets a small bit of slow-mo, no indication of tapping into the Dark Side, and all in her first real experience of the Force in combat.
Basically, in every Star Wars fight where one fighter is outclassed by another, they are either defeated (usually in their first encounter), or win because they tap into the Dark Side, or take advantage of a specific flaw. By Rey not doing this, it feels incredibly unexpected.
I've had at-length conversations about this fight with a friend of mine who is a huge broadsword fencing enthusiast, because it is his favorite part about the movie.
As someone with experience in stage combat, the emotions and acting are great, I can't fault that. My issue is with that it simply doesn't end how it narratively should.
He complained that movie swordfighting is about conveying to the audience the emotional interplay between two opposing characters and that the prequels, for all their amazing choreography often obscured those moments of emotional messaging because they were so heavy on displays of technical skill.
Attack of the Clones is the worst example of this, but Revenge of the Sith works far better in this, even more so than any of the sequel fights.
Mike Stoklasa in his episode 1 review encompasses it perfectly talking about the fight with Darth Maul. All the elements were there outside the fight: Maul was powerful, but angry and too eager to prove himself. Qui-gon takes a moment to center himself while Maul paces back and forth, agitated that the fight was interrupted by a weird...series of glowy, unexplained laser walls. Obi-wan sees his master get killed and he gets pumped, jumping into the fight with emotional vigor and determination to get back at Maul. But the second the swords actually start to clash, it's right back to technically perfect, emotionally detached swordplay.
I don't find it emotionally detached at all at the force field stage. Before then? Yeah, absolutely, but the moment they reach the laser walls, the fight feels very emotionally resonant, and the technical moves reflect the emotions of the three combatants.
While the fight in TFA is very good at showing those emotions, my main gripe comes from the fact that the power dynamics don't make sense halfway through the fight.
The Kylo/Rey fight shows that off perfectly with their technique. Rey respects the weapon she's holding, holding it carefully and away from her at all times. Her attacks are wild, telegraphed, and she is throwing unnecessary strength behind every blow, exactly like someone would who has been in plenty of fights where life or possessions were on the line but always with a blunt weapon, not with a weapon that's deadly in its own right. in the first half of the fight, before he starts to tire, Kylo keeps his weapon tight to his body and is not afraid to spin it towards him and past his face and body. Kylo actually blocks, moving his sword away from him very little and directing blows away from his opponent's body. Rey just meets swings with opposite swings and actually turns her back and runs several times, and we see multiple instances where Kylo can't end the fight only because he's moving at a walking pace - whether from the injury, or because his plan is not to kill Rey but instead to fight her to a standstill and convince her to surrender and join him like he tries at about 1:45.
Won't argue with that, but I will note that these are all things in the first half of the fight - the half that I really liked, and the half that I think the fight should have ended at. My issues aren't with this half of the fight.
Kylo's injury is re-established before the fight, we see that he's done something to stabilize himself but it's failing, and he's losing blood. He pounds on his chestplate to try and stop himself from bleeding, and when the fight turns 2:15 into the 3:00 long fight, he re-establishes the injury again by holding his side while making a wild swing.
I actually saw that more as him clutching were Rey just slashed him. If that's unclear to the audience, then I don't think that realistically can be called re-establishing the injury if we can't all tell.
Anyone who characterizes that fight as "Rey easily defeating Kylo because Muh Mary Sue" is doing one of three things.
1) not watching the fight closely at all, and possibly taking someone else's interpretation of it as their own simply because of which two characters fight and which one wins
2) being deliberately dishonest to try and construct a narrative, or
3) accustomed to the level of technical skill displayed by the characters in the prequels, video games and other star wars media and interpreting Kylo's "trained, but overconfident and injured" performance as "uncoordinated buffoon".
Or 4) Likes the first half where the fight makes sense, but the dynamic switch of the fight and switch in power in the second half is not explained, and ends the fight on an unearned feeling. Like you and your friend, I absolutely agree that the things you describe show Kylo as being very much in control, and Rey being inexperienced - but only in the first half. It's almost like they do their little slow-mo scene, and they switch brains.
Kylo is easily beating Rey, until he doesn't. That's my problem with it.
To me, this fight clearly reads as someone who has been trained but has very little experience in combat with someone using a similar weapon or of respecting his body's limitations while losing blood, versus someone with no training with the particular type of weapon they're using but plenty of low-tech hand to hand combat experience. Heck, the definitive turning point is practically identical to the episode of Firefly where Mal has to fight a duel and wins by pulling a cheap bar room brawl trick. Kylo blocks an overhead swing and Rey kicks him right where he's been shot.
That doesn't adequately explain the shift in dynamics after the slow-mo lightsaber clash though, as she makes the kick AFTER already beating Kylo back.
If Rey had done that kick (and we see it go right into the blaster wound) to break the lightsaber clash, instead of after already breaking it and pushing Kylo away, I'd be far more favourable of it from a performance aspect. However, my narrative hangups (mainly being that Rey should not win this duel, let alone as decisively as she does) would remain.
TL;DR - The dynamics of the fight are good, until Rey starts winning for no reason, and from a narrative standpoint, I don't think Rey should have beaten Kylo anyway.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/12/24 20:20:15
They/them
2019/12/24 22:58:28
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
that and there's something new to hate on. fact is the prequals suffered from the bane of unrealistic expectations. let's face it... they where NEVER gonna meet fan expectations
They easily could have. People were expecting the dashing adventures of 20ish Anakin and 40ish Kenobi as they romped through the clone wars and a slide into darkness. Incoherent economic politics, a child actor and the most insane attempt at a love story since the modern remake of Romeo and Juliet (punctuated by justifying mass murder as the clinching scene of the romance!) weren't invited or wanted.
Given that the Clone Wars cartoon was very popular among people who hated the prequels, it's really, really easy to see the story they could have done that absolutely would have met fan expectations.
I have always found that getting too hyped up about a movie (tv finale, book...) makes the finalized movie feel much worse than it actually is, because I have already head-written it before it comes out, and then I am disappointed when it's done differently to my expectations. First teaser for Phantom Menace looked really really good so my expectations went up, of course.
That said, that is no excuse for some really poor choices done with the SW Prequels and to lesser extent, Disney Trilogy. Making Anakin a pre-teen kid in PM was a huge mistake. They should have done Harry Potter thing there - keep same actor over entire trilogy. Start when he's like 13-14 to make the character bit more believable.
Mr Vetock, give back my Multi-tracker!
2019/12/24 23:11:46
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
Well, here's where you and I agree then. I MO the biggest weakness of the sequels in general and TFA in particular is the constant use of OT references as shorthand to get a message across quickly.
Rey closing her eyes to turn the fight is evoking Luke in Empire before dropping off the platform (and the next thing she does is drop down a cliff) and her delivering the series of brute force overhead swings immediately afterwards is (Imo anyway) her tapping in to the anger in her in the same way Luke does in Return.
That's why it seems sudden. That movie does that constantly, basically it just says "remember star wars? This time is like that time." And then moves on. And I think it's a lazy crutch.
I just disagree with the assertion that she wins "easily" and that it makes any less sense than obi Wan beating maul how he did. That was the single laziest "I dunno he wins now I guess" moment in star wars history, and beyond the score the weakest fight overall, it basically had zero emotion beyond trying to look cool.
Automatically Appended Next Post: To me the biggest problem with that fight in particular isn't actually in it, but before it. There's one shot of Kylo and Finn fighting where he gets one lucky swing and Kylo spins around and does a looney tune double take, and I KNOW they added that shot in there to make him read less like Anakin because they tried Extra Special Hard to make the sequels less melodramatic than the prequels.
Get rid of that one shot, make it more obvious that Rey is tapping in to the dark side than just emulating Lukes attack from Return, and that'd be perfect.
I'll take that fight over many of the 'all sizzle and no story' fights we got in the first two prequels.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/24 23:30:40
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
2019/12/24 23:40:28
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
that and there's something new to hate on. fact is the prequals suffered from the bane of unrealistic expectations. let's face it... they where NEVER gonna meet fan expectations
They easily could have. People were expecting the dashing adventures of 20ish Anakin and 40ish Kenobi as they romped through the clone wars and a slide into darkness. Incoherent economic politics, a child actor and the most insane attempt at a love story since the modern remake of Romeo and Juliet (punctuated by justifying mass murder as the clinching scene of the romance!) weren't invited or wanted.
Given that the Clone Wars cartoon was very popular among people who hated the prequels, it's really, really easy to see the story they could have done that absolutely would have met fan expectations.
I have always found that getting too hyped up about a movie (tv finale, book...) makes the finalized movie feel much worse than it actually is, because I have already head-written it before it comes out, and then I am disappointed when it's done differently to my expectations. First teaser for Phantom Menace looked really really good so my expectations went up, of course.
That said, that is no excuse for some really poor choices done with the SW Prequels and to lesser extent, Disney Trilogy. Making Anakin a pre-teen kid in PM was a huge mistake. They should have done Harry Potter thing there - keep same actor over entire trilogy. Start when he's like 13-14 to make the character bit more believable.
There wasn't any reason to go back that far. Just kick off the intro to the first film in media res with Kenobi and his padawan (late teen/early 20s) busting the blockade of Naboo during the opening arc of the Clone Wars, with the backup of clone troopers. Wrap up the initial action and introduce the queen of Naboo and her protocol droid and go onwards with the plot, chasing down evidence that a sith is behind the scenes.
The elevator scene at the beginning of the second film is basically a crime against moviemaking and storytelling. The duo is going back and forth just talking about all the adventures they had where they formed their bonds and they're basically taunting the audience with the story they wanted to be shown but are just going to get told about. Instead it was relentless drivel with CGI masking tape patching the action scenes together.
Both the prequels and the new trilogy suffer severely from being one-shots written with no regard to the next film, and imply all sorts of interesting things happening...off screen, somewhere else. The interesting narrative is tossed over the shoulder like a lightsaber and the focus tunes in on a lot of second guessing and navel gazing, punctuated by five minutes of directionless running about and letting the computer graphics try to fill the yawning voids left by the writers.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/26 05:42:39
Efficiency is the highest virtue.
2019/12/25 01:01:42
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
Lance845 wrote: If you are asking why didn't the dark side rise to meet the light I would argue that it did and we started the story in the wake of their victory. And it's not like the Sith were not around getting stronger and stronger during the time the Jedi were active. Remember, the force isn't saying we need to balance the politics in the galaxy. Just the power of the light and dark. Sideous and Plagus were powerful in ways that the combined might of many jedi never were.
2 Meters is pretty fething small for a ship traveling at starships speeds with precision lasers or guiding an exact torpedo down a shaft without hitting a wall and detonating early.
You could argue that force ghost Obiwan did it sure. But then as you say, Rey was just being guided by Ghosts too. So those arguments just negate each other. If you are going to pretend that Rey did her things, then you ar pretending that Luke did his. And the ones feats are not more impressive then the others.
If the force ghosts did it all, then both heroes are pretty lame. Of course, it was Rey's story that introduced the idea that force ghosts COULD do it all, so which one is lamer?
As far as the trench run goes.... no matter what Luke says, there is no way there were going full throttle down the trench. At even .01c, a quite SLOW starship speed, that would be 3,000 km per SECOND. The first death start was only 150 km in diameter...
I expect if you do a frame-by-frame examination of the trench run, comparing the size of the X-Wings with the time it takes to travel their own length along the trench, you'll find they're traveling slower 500 mph, possibly quite a bit slower. And at that speed, it becomes a lot more possible.
At any rate, if you consider Luke having to really focus and concentrate to move a lightsaber a meter or so while basically untrained to be the same as Rey casually lifting hundreds of tons of rocks while completely untrained... we're never going to agree on anything in this discussion.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BrianDavion wrote: maybe but what we saw on SCREEN was a hard right angle turn,
Which could be a result of the perspective of the scene...
Lance845 wrote: But it doesn't need Rey to have lineage to do that.
I would argue that.
Without any special lineage, how does Rey keep pulling new powers out of her nether regions with ZERO training, ZERO guidance, and ZERO experience?
Being of the lineage she's from gives her an excuse to do so. Granted, it's a pretty darn limp excuse, but an excuse nonetheless. With NO excuse you're just trampling all over two trilogies worth of precedent where even the Chosen One needed training to do much of anything with the Force.
Luke trains her on the island in Ep8. It seems fast bc it all happens in a single movie but we don't know how long she is there. More importantly, she has trained with Leia between 8 & 9 for some unknown amount of time, likely several years at least.
Ah, no, we have a pretty darn good idea how long Rey's on the island with Luke. The Chase of Fools takes 16 hours. Luke has barely talked to Rey when the Chase starts, and she's back in time to face Snoke and Kylo Ren BEFORE the chase is over. She's there hours at most.
As far as training with Leia goes, 1) Aside from the Leia Poppins scene we have very little on-screen evidence Leia was trained in much of anything Force-wise, and 2) Rey was pulling powers out of her nether regions well before she ever met Leia, much less had time to train with her.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2019/12/25 01:33:11
CHAOS! PANIC! DISORDER!
My job here is done.
2019/12/25 02:04:27
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
the_scotsman wrote:Well, here's where you and I agree then. I MO the biggest weakness of the sequels in general and TFA in particular is the constant use of OT references as shorthand to get a message across quickly.
I can see that, yeah. One thing I noticed with my examples about other films doing the whole "hero beats stronger villain" was that in every case the hero (Luke or Anakin) taps into the Dark Side, it is made explicitly clear and how it grants power.
Now, Rey *might* have been tapping into the Dark Side or her own latant Palpapowers, but we're not really shown or told that in any real way, other than her suddenly changing the dynamic of the fight. Essentially, we see the effect, but no cause.
Rey closing her eyes to turn the fight is evoking Luke in Empire before dropping off the platform (and the next thing she does is drop down a cliff) and her delivering the series of brute force overhead swings immediately afterwards is (Imo anyway) her tapping in to the anger in her in the same way Luke does in Return.
I think the difference between Luke in ESB and Rey in TFA is that while both characters do "win", they win in different ways that speak more to the narrative importance.
Luke "wins" in ESB by running away, by knowing that to stay is to be doomed and be captured and potentially turned against his friends. He's far outmatched, he's compromised, and he knows it. Narratively, him running away also serves as a chance to keep Vader intimidating for an encounter where he can be decisively beaten (ROTJ) without some environmental effect causing another showdown, as well as upping the stakes for Luke to get better and succeed where he previously failed.
Rey wins in TFA by pummelling Kylo to a pulp on the round, without suffering against her morals (aka, falling to the Dark Side with meaningful consequences or even setting up her own darkness) - there's no room for her own growth against Kylo from an ideological standpoint, she's just beaten him. If anyone should be the protagonist after this, it's Kylo.
Realistically, Rey should have "won" like Luke did - realising her life meant something other than just throwing it away in a lightsaber duel she was outclassed in. Plus, that's an even better message to tell people - instead of "have faith, and you'll pummel your problems to the dirt", we get a more touching and personal "hey, you're better than wasting yourself on something that you're getting nowhere with - prioritise your own safety".
I just disagree with the assertion that she wins "easily" and that it makes any less sense than obi Wan beating maul how he did. That was the single laziest "I dunno he wins now I guess" moment in star wars history, and beyond the score the weakest fight overall, it basically had zero emotion beyond trying to look cool.
I disagree with that, because we see all the mechanics of how Obi-Wan wins. We know that Qui-Gon's lightsaber is still there, it's never been removed from the scene. There's a pragmatic reason to use it (Kenobi's has been kicked away). Maul is clearly taunting, and is gloating in his victory. We see the lightsaber begin to move, using the Force (which we know Kenobi can use competently). We've also seen him performing very good acrobatic feats, so him jumping is completely possible, from what we've already seen.
Everything is set up, all the moves are possible we know they can be done, and is allowed to happen because Maul demonstrates a true flaw.
As soon as Rey opens her eyes after her little slow-mo bit, she is always, without fail, in command of the fight, until Kylo grapples her at the end, and then gets his face split open. We aren't shown how Rey is suddenly so capable, we aren't shown a worsening of Kylo's condition, and we aren't even told retroactively how she did it. She just does.
Yes, it had emotion, but emotion without coherency is just as flawed as coherency without emotion in my eyes, and as a result, I would take the TPM fight over the TFA fight any day, because it makes more narrative sense.
I'll take that fight over many of the 'all sizzle and no story' fights we got in the first two prequels.
I'd rather have a fight that serves the narrative better and maintains audience understanding of the events within it than one that has characters succeed for unknown reasons, and where narratively inconvenient*.
*as in, Rey should have lost, because it was her first fight against her antagonist, and beating them in their first real battle removes a lot of tension prematurely.
You wouldn't have Luke beat Vader in their first fight, because it removes from Vader's threat factor, and because it would allow for a greater cathartic release when Luke finally *does* beat him in their next fight.
They/them
2019/12/25 02:05:23
Subject: Star Wars Rise of Skywalker - WARNING, SPOILERS.
the_scotsman wrote: Not inevitable in an absolute sense, but inevitable in the sense of: if you want a hundred million dollar star wars spectacle film trilogy and Lucas doesn't want to make another pet project, it's not going to be an "auteur" film. It's going to have to contend with finance drones who don't care about what's in the movie, only that people go see it.
From finance drones standpoint, the new trilogy was a huge success. It allowed them to establish a new generation of fans, made them a bunch of cash, and they got in and got out without creating an expensive cast of primary actors they have to keep including and paying more and more in each movie. Fan backlash probably even helped them - Daisy Ridley, Mark Hamill and the others are probably 10000% done getting heaps of death threats on the daily.
But is it making them a ton of money? Remember, Disney coughed up $4 billion for Lucasfilm and the rights to Star Wars. Thus far:
TFA had $2 billion in gross sales, and a $780 million profit.
Rogue One had $1 billion in gross sales, and a $319 million profit.
TLJ had $1.3 billion in gross sales, and a $417 million profit.
Solo had $392 million in gross sales and a $77 million LOSS
TROS has had it's first weekend sales twice that of Solo, but quite a bit lower than TLJ, much less TFA.
Thus far they've only made back roughly a third of their investment in Lucasfilm. And I hope you noticed the direction sales are going - they need at least six more TLJ's to break even, but it doesn't look like they're going to GET six more TLJ-level sales anytime soon.
Much less the TFA-level sales and profits they no doubt expected to be making, which is why they shelled out the $4 billion in the first place.
10000+
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3500+ IK Plus 1x Warhound, Reaver, Warlord Titans
