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Post by redsharkJason on Dec 18, 2019 2:12:40 GMT
Episode IX:
The Rise of Skywalker is planned to mark the end of the Skywalker Saga. Please feel free to communicate at length within this thread about matters concerning this film. Laps up because there won't be another Star Wars universe movie addition until 2022!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2019 9:52:44 GMT
Oh boy, this thread is gonna be fun!
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
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Post by lidar2 on Dec 18, 2019 10:18:50 GMT
Probably won't get to see it until 27th/28th December. Just too busy with other stuff this close to Christmas. My son and I will be going to see it.
I just need to read the Rebellion Reborn novel first ...
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Post by Tim Bradley on Dec 18, 2019 11:41:29 GMT
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Dec 18, 2019 11:44:05 GMT
It's out in 1hr 45 mins from the time of this post in Australia.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2019 11:58:35 GMT
Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker is planned to mark the end of the Skywalker Saga. Please feel free to communicate at length within this thread about matters concerning this film. Laps up because there won't be another Star Wars universe movie addition until 2022! It's indicative of the Disney-system that when they recently said Star Wars would take a break from the big screen...they meant for 2 or 3 years. That's the world we live in now, where the length of time between the original films (and even the prequels) is now considered a long rest. Especially when they have 3 or 4 massive budget TV shows that are essentially films told over a few months on Disney+, there will be no real gap at all. This Marvel formula of 3 or 4 movies a year was never sustainable with Star Wars at the budgets they were going out at. FWIW, and the thread is still up on it. I thought a great deal of The Last Jedi and think it was pretty bold though it doesn't leave much wiggle room for follow ups. It felt like an ending more than a second act in a trilogy. What it certainly wasn't was an ideal set up for a JJ Abrams sequel, tonally it seems to be so far removed from JJ's work that we're gonna end up with a very unbalanced trilogy. I kinda wonder if this'll end up being more a follow up to Ep VII than Ep VIII with much of Last Jedi retconned or ignored. It was always a nonsense idea that Abrams and Johnson never worked together even informally on the transition between their films. Of course we also know Colin Trevorrow was fired because his ideas for Ep IX were not in alignment with Disney's. Why did they employ him in the first place then? Did they give him the job with zero idea what he wanted to do with the film? I'm still looking forward to Rise Of Skywalker but I think there's an awful lot to get resolved. No easy ask. The early buzz has been mostly positive but we heard that in 2017 too and Last Jedi ended up being the most divisive SW project ever.
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Post by muckypup on Dec 18, 2019 16:40:45 GMT
17 hours to go till i go to see it.......
going in with open mind........
must admit i'm hoping for redemption from all the mess last Jedi made and allowing the franchise to go forward with a clearer slate
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2019 20:21:21 GMT
It will be an interesting film to see, but I love Star Wars so I'm going in with a positive mind.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Dec 18, 2019 21:45:06 GMT
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Dec 19, 2019 14:22:22 GMT
Saw it an hour ago. I enjoyed it, but there was a lot of story packed in. It felt like 3 movies in 1. Trevarrow's planned Trilogy ender, Abrams original plans for TLJ and Abrams planned trilogy ender
Maclunkey!
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Post by muckypup on Dec 19, 2019 16:10:49 GMT
wow yes it is a busy movie, never giving room to catch its breath or leave you to ponder the plot holes till its all over...…..
yeah its a great fun movie, but doesn't tie/tidy up the nagging things that last Jedi dealt with so badly, in a satisfactory way....leia's force use, phasma's odd end, snoke, and a few others, so don't go expecting a last jedi reset/retcon.
what it does do is give you a satisfying end to a lukewarm 3rd trilogy...…. the leia scenes work well, rey's parentage was dealt with pretty good and kylo is much better with a mask! you never really care about the new leads like we did about Anakin, obi wan, han, luke and leia, but everyone gets decent screen time both old and new (apart from poor artoo who I suspect would have if we still had poor Carrie)
but overall it pleased me, a few miss steps along the way but we have come to a place where I want new tales set in the star wars universe and leave the legacy alone.....
what Mandalorian has taught us that star wars doesn't need to be epic just fun. The star wars universe is a glorious place to explore.
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Post by Digi on Dec 20, 2019 15:23:24 GMT
The movie has one or two wonky bits (but to be fair, every Star Wars movie has at least one glaring problem), however on the whole I was very, very happy with it. Easily the best film of the sequel trilogy IMO.
Scattershot thoughts:
- I was pretty impressed at how effectively they were able to use four year old Carrie footage. Yeah you could tell she wasn't reacting in real time to the lines written for Daisy Ridley years later, but I think a good chunk of that is down to us in the real world knowing what's going on. I bet if a kid grows up watching this movie, they'll have no idea until they're older and find out.
- I was amused at how they've learned to use CGI (re)creations in a way much more believable than CGI Leia at the end of Rogue One -- flashback Luke and Leia in the dark, only illuminated by blade colours, or as a Force Ghost at the end but 'well, let's have her 'stand' 20 feet back from the camera, that plus the transparency should disguise it'
- Babu Frik was great, but he's no Baby Yoda
- Looooooved the Sith planet Exawhateveritwascalled. Very horror film-inspired
- Very curious about all the old Jedi voices during the climax. Was that repurposed old recordings, or did they call up Hayden Christensen and Samuel L Jackson and the rest and ask them to come into a sound studio to record a few lines?
- legit did not expect Hux to get offed so unceremoniously, so that was a heck of a surprise. Not unwelcome though, I thought he was a lame wannabe ever since TFA
- the arrival of the fleet of just people who collectively stood up to say "no more" was a real triumph
- really, really liked how this movie didn't actually throw away the "let the past die, kill it if you have to" theme from TLJ, but instead reframed it much more upliftingly as "where you come from doesn't define you, you can choose to be better"
- rolled my eyes super hard at the "Reylo" fan service (I hate shippers), but had to stifle a laugh when he died two seconds later
- the fan service I really did appreciate though was how they chose to close out the Saga storyline by returning to where it all began for fans, the Lars ranch on Tatooine, and give Rey her own watching the suns set scene
- when the heroes get back to the Resistance planet, and that admiral from TLJ tells them that Leia is gone....Chewie absolutely howling and collapsing to his knees was a misty-eyed gutpunch for me
- I don't know where the fark Richard Grant's character was for the first two movies, but he seems to be higher-ranking than Hux? That's a bit weird....but I still really liked the character
- great to have Lando back, though I'm not sure why it took so long to invite him. And the last scene with him....do we figure The Adventures of Lando and Jannah is going to be a novel, or a comic series?
- I was somewhere between a chuckle and an "ohhhh" when Kylo first went to Palps's temple (or whatever you want to call it) at the beginning of the movie and he walks past a tank that has like 3 or 4 Snoke clones floating in it
- was hoping for a bit more expansion on Zorri Bliss, but given that this was already nearly 2.5h long and crammed with story, I guess there just wasn't room. Ah well, that's what the books and comics are for
I'm sure there's more that I'm forgetting, but those are the bits that spring to mind off the top of my head.
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Post by Digi on Dec 20, 2019 15:34:10 GMT
but doesn't tie/tidy up the nagging things that last Jedi dealt with so badly, in a satisfactory way.... leia's force use, phasma's odd end, snoke, and a few others, so don't go expecting a last jedi reset/retcon. No...those were addressed. We got that flashback of Leia doing Jedi training with Luke, so this movie 'fixes' her unexpectedly using it TLJ. And near the beginning, when Kylo Ren is walking into Palpatine's temple (or whatever we're calling it), at one point he walks past a tank with 3 or 4 Snoke clones floating in it. It happens right before Palps speaks to Kylo, telling him that he's every voice that has ever been in Kylo's head, including Snoke's. Snoke was literally just a tool of Palpatine. As to Phasma, I'm not sure what you mean. She was his old, brutal CO when he was a stormtrooper, and in TLJ he bested her in combat--slew his lingering demon. That's the end of Phasma's story, because it's the resolution of Finn's story with her, closing the book on that chapter of his life as he embraces his new purpose as a Resistance believer. the leia scenes work well, rey's parentage was dealt with pretty good and kylo is much better with a mask! Agreed, across the board. I was actually really surprised at how well they made Leia's scenes work. Yes we as the audience can tell she's not organically reacting to lines written for Daisy Ridley years later, but that's just our age speaking, as adults who grew up with these actors inhabiting the roles, being pop culture figures unto themselves. 20 years from now, any kid who grew up watching these movies knowing these people as the characters and not knowing about the actors till they're older, those kids won't even notice. you never really care about the new leads like we did about Anakin, obi wan, han, luke and leia, Hold up, who actually cared about Anakin?! what Mandalorian has taught us that star wars doesn't need to be epic just fun. The star wars universe is a glorious place to explore. Agreed! It really is, it's so big and bursting with life and stories, the possibilities are endless!
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Post by muckypup on Dec 20, 2019 19:30:39 GMT
but doesn't tie/tidy up the nagging things that last Jedi dealt with so badly, in a satisfactory way.... leia's force use, phasma's odd end, snoke, and a few others, so don't go expecting a last jedi reset/retcon. No...those were addressed. We got that flashback of Leia doing Jedi training with Luke, so this movie 'fixes' her unexpectedly using it TLJ. And near the beginning, when Kylo Ren is walking into Palpatine's temple (or whatever we're calling it), at one point he walks past a tank with 3 or 4 Snoke clones floating in it. It happens right before Palps speaks to Kylo, telling him that he's every voice that has ever been in Kylo's head, including Snoke's. Snoke was literally just a tool of Palpatine. As to Phasma, I'm not sure what you mean. She was his old, brutal CO when he was a stormtrooper, and in TLJ he bested her in combat--slew his lingering demon. That's the end of Phasma's story, because it's the resolution of Finn's story with her, closing the book on that chapter of his life as he embraces his new purpose as a Resistance believer. the leia scenes work well, rey's parentage was dealt with pretty good and kylo is much better with a mask! Agreed, across the board. I was actually really surprised at how well they made Leia's scenes work. Yes we as the audience can tell she's not organically reacting to lines written for Daisy Ridley years later, but that's just our age speaking, as adults who grew up with these actors inhabiting the roles, being pop culture figures unto themselves. 20 years from now, any kid who grew up watching these movies knowing these people as the characters and not knowing about the actors till they're older, those kids won't even notice. you never really care about the new leads like we did about Anakin, obi wan, han, luke and leia, Hold up, who actually cared about Anakin?! what Mandalorian has taught us that star wars doesn't need to be epic just fun. The star wars universe is a glorious place to explore. Agreed! It really is, it's so big and bursting with life and stories, the possibilities are endless! Yeah I liked anakin, he was awesome in clone wars.......lol i did get all the references made to the shoddy work in last jedi, like snoke etc.....I just meant the comments to say that they never tried to change last jedi stuff so things still felt unfinished or properly explained. leias training etc should have been explained in ep8 even if it was just her at lukes training camp etc....jj abrams needs to do a “we’re sorry” cut of last jedi.......lol Phasma defeat in that episode seemed strange as Gwendoline said she was signed on for all three films and there was a lot more to come, when doing chat shows and stuff. but great comments and an awesome reply......
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Post by relativetime on Dec 21, 2019 2:29:08 GMT
Saw it yesterday. I have some mixed feelings about it.
On the one hand, it was a really enjoyable film. I really liked the jokes and the character interactions; the action was really well directed and fun. Almost all the fan-service-y moments worked for me. The acting was phenomenal on all fronts.
That being said, this film felt really rushed in places and there were a lot of moments I thought could have been cut because at times I felt some of the central themes and character arcs were getting lost in the mix. Honestly, as much as I love Carrie Fisher, she should have been mostly cut from the film. The scenes with her still alive might work, but only just. They didn’t contain much substantive dialogue for Leia and it was really obvious she wasn’t reacting off what the other actors in the scene were saying. It also distracted from the growth Poe went through in the previous film where it really did feel like an almost passing of the mantle. It feels really abrupt that the journey this character went through in the past film is barely acknowledged if at all.
I loved Palpatine and unlike the prequels where he was unintentionally hilarious - but undeniably one of the few best parts - here he’s portrayed as a very credible threat. However, reintroducing him intro the fray makes for some serious whiplash at the start of the film and it might have made for a more coherent storyline if Abrams had revived Snoke, which I honestly believe would have been more believable. Maybe it wouldn’t have been as pleasing, but it would have at least felt like tying the trilogy together before tying the entire saga together.
I was very irritated that Abrams chose to sideline Rose as much as he did. I imagine that will make certain detractors of The Last Jedi very happy, but it still feels wrong that a character that featured so prominently in the previous film and had an emotional connection to one of the trilogy’s leads is relegated to the background besides a few lines of dialogue. She could have just as easily replaced Threepio - with some necessary rewrites of course. When I see things like that, it really does come across as though Disney wasn’t brave enough to commit to a vision and caved to parts of the fanbase that responded... poorly to Rose’s inclusion in the previous film. In my opinion, caving particularly on that front was as bad a decision as caving to the demands to fire James Gunn.
The pacing really suffers in this film as well. As I said, the film feels rushed at times and there were a lot of very convenient moments sprinkled throughout, such as Chewie’s capture and then survival - that whole scene was really frustrating and it really seemed to lack any sense of spacial awareness - or the fact that Threepio couldn’t translate Sith - not to mention the fact that the act of translation basically lacked any tension whatsoever because they mention then and there that R2 has a backup of his memory anyways. The whole reintroduction of Palpatine takes a good chunk of time right off the bat too. The whole first half of the movie feels disjointed, really.
I didn’t even mention how they basically kept teasing at Finn’s relationship with Rey at points throughout the film but never pay it off. It literally feels as though there was an entire scene cut out of the film at the very end between them that at least addresses that. Or how irritating it is that Rey turned out to be a Palpatine. It was handled much better than I thought it was going to be handled, but it’s still frustrating as all hell that we took something really subversive and different from The Last Jedi and made Rey another “Most Important Person In The Galaxy Because Bloodline.” Also, is it just me misremembering or is it incredibly jarring that we go the entire film with Palpatine ordering everyone to kill Rey and at the end he actually wants her to kill him instead which was his secret plan all along?
So, yeah, this was a very mixed kind of movie for me. Let me be clear - I enjoyed my time watching it for the most part. There’s a lot of crowd pleasing moments in this film and I imagine a lot of people are going to be very happy with the film because of that. But overall, this film disappointed me. It bit off more than it could chew and seems unfocused at times. It’s better than the prequels but probably my least favorite Disney Star Wars film.
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Post by christmastrenzalore on Dec 21, 2019 20:53:53 GMT
I largely enjoyed the The Rise of Skywalker.
It certainly has problems, but I think the overly fast pacing worked in the film's favour. The preposterous plot points, the desperate Last Jedi apologizing, the near 4th wall breaking fan-service and meme jokes; all basically treated like a hand-wave.
And all that stuff aside, the film does have a lot of positive aspects. It was nice actually having the new characters together for once, I liked the Indana Jones-esque first half and the way they used the force link power from TLJ in the was pretty effective. And my gosh, old Palp chewing the scenery is always a delight.
Rey's linage being retconned is by far the most awkward spanner in the works. It still kinda works, since she's not defined by her evil lineage, but it again binds the force to familial ties, and her backstory is less unique now. Then again, I don't feel TLJ really capitalized on this concept either, so, whatevs.
My only MAJOR gripe with the movie was Chewey getting captured. Maybe I stopped paying attention for a moment, but it seemed to happen very suddenly and out of no-where. And the ensuing fall-out felt a bit cheap and manipulative.
And I would have liked the final battle with the Emperor to have been a bit more over the top. The build up was great, and melting him with his own deflected lightning was cool (I guess Mace Windu came in handy during the Jedi pep talk), but it was too quick. The film was already skewing heavily into bonkers schlock; I wanted some dumb anime-level theatrics.
All in all, it did a decent job forcing bringing all the disparate aspects of the trilogy together, and hit all the gratifying emotional beats it needed to.
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Post by project37 on Dec 21, 2019 22:21:52 GMT
Scattershot thoughts: <snip> Right on board with all of these. A few more to add:
- What they did in practically erasing Kelly Marie Tran / Rose was just plain cowardly and wrong. The actor and the character deserved better.
- That *was* Wedge as part of the cavalry...right?
- Ben's sly shrug to the Knights of Ren before taking them down was just like his dad and warmed my heart.
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Post by Digi on Dec 21, 2019 22:28:31 GMT
Scattershot thoughts: <snip> Right on board with all of these. A few more to add:
- What they did in practically erasing Kelly Marie Tran / Rose was just plain cowardly and wrong. The actor and the character deserved better.
- That *was* Wedge as part of the cavalry...right?
- Ben's sly shrug to the Knights of Ren before taking them down was just like his dad and warmed my heart.
Respectively: Yes, yes, and yes
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2019 0:24:36 GMT
I'm just home from seeing it and....I didn't love it. I'm not sure I even liked it all that much as right now the most positive things in my head are the fan service and that dies down in the cold light of day. Seeing Lando save the day (twice) was great fun, seeing half the galaxy show up was cool (but why was Wedge not part of the Resistance front line already? Oh...because Dennis Lawson didn't want to come back till now!), seeing Harrison Ford show up, Ewoks, voice cameos from everyone from the prequels, badass Luke Force Ghost (force ghosts hair still grows!)....it was almost Star Wars porn in places. Hearing the voices of characters like Kanan from Rebels and Asoka from The Clone Wars/Rebels among other spinoff characters is deep cuts by popcorn munching standards. Nice to see them given their moment alongside the new voice cameos from Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Sam Jackson et al, the Star Wars equivalent of the BF companions being name checked in Night Of The Doctor for the 50th.
But then even while watching some of it was worrying. There's SO much in this and it all moves so fast that I was getting a bit dizzy with it. It's non-stop and not in a good way always. It feels like a 4 hour film chopped down. I mean there's so much here that the opening crawl feels like a whole movie we missed (probably JJ's second film in the trilogy!) as Palpatine returns in the opening crawl itself with the whole galaxy hearing a transmission from him. Really? The big bad just....there off-screen? I kinda struggle to believe Snoke was as inconsequential as turned out in the trilogy. Palpatine saying "Yeah..that was me, I made him like a puppet" very much contradicts what little we were told about Snoke, that he was ancient and had been around since well before the Emperor's ascent in the prequels. I struggle to believe writing the character off as a puppet is what Abrams intended in 2015.
Why WAS Lando saving the day when Poe messed up more often than not. Wasn't Poe's arc in the last film to learn to be a leader? Yet he seemed to have to re-learn all that now. Rose being sidelined especially in the face of the abuse Kelly took online did not sit well at all. In fact did any of Rian Johnson's creations get much of a lookin here? Rey's bloodline being sorta/kinda retconned "Well, your parents WERE nobodies...but your grandad..." that felt very reactionary. We'll never know if it was JJ Abrams' idea all along or one devised in the wake of the divisive Last Jedi. I thought Rian's idea of the Force being democratic, that it wasn't just about who your relations were, was much more interesting. The Palpatine stuff was indeed very well done but it didn't serve much of a purpose differently to Return Of The Jedi, really. He tempts our good wannabee Jedi hero who resists him at the end while the Sith heir apparent saves the young Jedi's life, dying in the process but redeemed as a Jedi, leaving our young wannabee as a fully fledged Jedi, the last in the galaxy. That's all exactly the same! I really defended Force Awakens as a clone of OG Star Wars because there was a sense that post-prequels the public needed to know "No, it's OK, this is ACTUAL Star Wars again" but the end of this trilogy is pretty much exactly the end of the classic one with just too much copying at the back of the class. We even got Ewoks as if the cribbing from ROTJ wasn't made explicit enough!
It was all exceptionally well made though, and the acting was fantastic from our main 3 leads. Adam Driver in particular plays the conflicted villain so very well. Gotta say, when we saw the glimpse of Leia's Jedi training soon post-Jedi I kinda thought "I wish I was watching that film". Seeing a Star Wars Jedi film NOT about fighting with lightsabers and recycling the beats of every other film might be cool!
f I had to compare it to another of the director's films, this is from the JJ Abrams who directed Star Trek Into Darkness. It confuses fan service for ideas, and copies the main story of an earlier film in the franchise almost verbatim.
I've been a big fan of the last two main Star Wars films, especially Last Jedi, but this just...well..it's not even all that bad. It's just so very unambitious, so covered in cobwebs and so full of retcons and upside down thematic beats because of ignoring much of the last film. A sad end for the Skywalker saga, I think. Maybe in 30 or 40 years some other young pup will get to give us Episodes 10-12 and we can see how this holds up!
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Post by Digi on Dec 22, 2019 0:50:26 GMT
I'm just home from seeing it and....I didn't love it. I'm not sure I even liked it all that much as right now the most positive things in my head are the fan service and that dies down in the cold light of day. Seeing Lando save the day (twice) was great fun, seeing half the galaxy show up was cool (but why was Wedge not part of the Resistance front line already? Oh...because Dennis Lawson didn't want to come back till now!), seeing Harrison Ford show up....it was almost Star Wars porn in places. But then even while watching some of it was worrying. Why WAS Lando saving the day when Poe messed up more often than not. Wasn't Poe's arc in the last film to learn to be a leader? Yet he seemed to have to re-learn all that now. Rose being sidelined especially in the face of the abuse Kelly took online did not sit well at all. In fact did any of Rian Johnson's creations get much of a lookin here? Rey's bloodline being sorta/kinda retconned "Well, your parents WERE nobodies...but your grandad..." that felt very reactionary. We'll never know if it was JJ Abrams' idea all along or one devised in the wake of the divisive Last Jedi. I thought Rian's idea of the Force being democratic, that it wasn't just about who your relations were, was much more interesting. The Palpatine stuff was indeed very well done but it didn't serve much of a purpose differently to Return Of The Jedi, really. He tempts our good wannabee Jedi hero who resists him at the end while the Sith heir apparent saves the young Jedi's life, dying in the process. I really defended Force Awakens as a clone of OG Star Wars but the end of this trilogy is pretty much exactly the end of the classic one. There's SO much in this and it all moves so fast that I was getting a bit dizzy with it. This is very much Star Wars as done by the director of Star Trek Into Darkness - for better, and worse. It was all exceptionally well made though, and the acting was fantastic from our main 3 leads. Adam Driver in particular plays the conflicted villain so very well. Gotta say, when we saw the glimpse of Leia's Jedi training soon post-Jedi I kinda thought "I wish I was watching that film". On balance: everything I've heard about the making of TLJ indicates that Rian Johnson knew exactly the film he wanted to make with TLJ, regardless of what was actually told in or intended by TFA. My understanding is that his story and script were already done while TFA was still being made, and his access to the TFA dailies was really just used to make tweaks so there were no total contradictions. I've come away from TLJ and stories about its production with the distinct impression that Johnson had no interest in being a 'team player' who works on the middle act of a three act story, rather than he dug his heels in and approached it as 'this is my movie and I'm going to do it my way; I don't care what the Act I did and I'm not working on Act III so I don't care about that either.' I think that's an excellent approach for standalone stories like Looper and Knives Out, whose final products speak for themselves, but it's an absolutely wrongheaded way of coming at a collaborative process where you're part of a greater whole. That said, I think he's proven he's a very capable creative sort when he's in charge of it all, so I will still be very interested to see how he approaches it when he has control over an entire SW trilogy. No, TROS is not a perfect movie, of course. But I do think that having TLJ as its immediate predecessor introduced certain handicaps that it necessarily had to deal with, namely a) course-correcting some elements of TLJ that didn't fit with TFA (or the rest of SW); and b) doing a lot of plot-advancing storytelling that should have been done in TLJ. Having the Johnson handicap, plus the handicap of having to write around Carrie's absence, and then on top of that having to close out a trilogy for five new characters plus closing things out for at least four OT characters, that's an awful lot of plates to have to spin at once. For my part, I think it's impressive that TROS turned out as entertaining as it did.
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