Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (spoilers obviously)

You have to understand that JJ makes films based on moment to moment enjoyment rather than story structure. He didn't explain Palpatine because Exposition is boring and hard and wouldn't you all rather enjoy yourself watching another action scene?

It doesn't matter why Palpatine is back, or him being an actual character with understandable wants and needs, what matters is you can vicariously enjoy the Power Fantasy of being the hero who defeated the evil emperor through Rey. So why bother with any of that when it's not the point?

Edited by ashlay on Jan 14th 2020 at 2:56:37 PM

@VengefulBale: HAH!

But one of the reasons Palpatine is well loved is that he come up with genuinely intelligent and we'll thought out plans. Here he just schizophrenically changes what he's going for like five times.

And his plan just didn't make sense.

I’ve seen the theory that he didn’t particularly care which of Rey and Kylo killed the other and showed up in front of him and was happy to play them off each other

As long as he got a nice strong body to succeed him and/or to body jack

Not really conveyed in the movie

And then there’s that whole force vision Rey has where she and Kylo rule together (except concept art shows Kylo hogging the entire throne, rude)

Who even knows how that factored in

Edit: And you also have Palpatine completely oblivious that Rey and Kylo are a dyad so he changes his plan again

I think the theory that his brain didn’t come back right is right

Edited by Bocaj on Jan 14th 2020 at 3:02:21 PM

That critism I disagree with

His plan is actually fairly easy to understand

At First he wants Kylo to Kill Rey and then him so he can take Kylos body. But after Kylo redeems himself Palps switches gears to trying to make Rey his new host instead.

The Force dyad thing wasn't really a plan he had, apparently. The way the film shows it, it looks like Palps just got really lucky.

Okay that sounds hilarious. The idea that he's just deciding to role with everything that's been thrown against him.

How did Palpatine not know about their Force Dyad but Snoke did.

A Good question for another time says J.J Abrahams

... ehh...

Palpatine was legitimately a mastermind in the prequel trilogy, but is something of a idiot in the OT. Him being stupid enough to botch his entire plan because he's overconfident about the power he possesses is pretty in character for him.

Palpatine himself was done fairly well, imo. It's just that everything about him being there in the first place is ridiculous.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 14th 2020 at 12:17:26 PM

I thought it was pretty funny how Palpatine reacts when he drains Rey to restore himself. You really get the feeling that he didn't plan for that at all, and his reaction just screams "Huh, would you look at that!" It's like he's as flummoxed by the film's Ass Pulls as the viewer is.

I started thinking this after rewatching it, where if you pay attention to the things he says to Kylo in the beginning after knowing what his plans are for Rey in the end, it becomes evident he intends to possess Kylo the same way he tried to possess Rey.

The problem is that that's not something that should be a Rewatch Bonus. That's an essential plot point that should be obvious in the story itself. And it's something that wouldn't have taken a lot to make clear, either.

My headcannon is that his brain is damaged from the resurrection and that he's like pleasantly surprised that his random stabs in the dark are getting some success like with that

Edited by miraculous on Jan 14th 2020 at 12:20:48 PM

@miraculous: Sure, but Abrams doesn't understand that. Or at least doesn't care about it. Which fair enough, writing is hard, art is subjective. Plenty of people who didn't enjoy this movie or that can't even explain the mechanics that are causing them to feel one way or another, let alone write something that has these mechanics. It's just "this is bad" or "it doesn't make logical sense".

Let's touch on something one of the Film Crit Hulk articles posted a few pages back gets into deeply: for a lot of people, Star Wars is just a Power Fantasy. It's not a story. It doesn't have characters. They're just a bunch of ciphers through which to enjoy escapism in a fantastic world. Toys to smash together. I'd argue JJ Abrams is one of those people. That's why we don't have Character Arcs for Rey or Poe or Finn (has anything about their motivations changed from the start to the end of the film?). That's why Palpatine is nothing but a Villain Ball who does whatever is needed to add surprise and danger to a scene. That's why "ultimate evil" is a million billion planet destroying ships. That's why the final battle is all the Siths vs all the Jedis with Dual Wielding light sabers!

Palpatine, like everyone in TROS, is just in service of feeling good, and nothing else. And I'm bummed out by it, cause I at least really just wanted to see a story.

Edited by ashlay on Jan 14th 2020 at 3:24:25 PM

I’ll have you know that Finn went from “gotta get away from First Order but also gotta scream REEEEEYYYYY” to just “REEEEEYYYYY”

Huh well I can see why the escapist fans would not like the PT.

You can’t ignore the story & there’s no power fantasy to be had in seeing Anakin torn apart, Yoda & Obi-Wan on the run, & the heroes completely losing.

The reason I like Rian Johnson better is because he does what he feels would be better for the story, fan reaction be damned. Wether or not they are better for the story being subjective of course.

Abrams on the other hand, when it comes to SW is a very "For the fans" director.

Rian is the kid who writes elaborate fanfiction, tries to make it feel natural, but maybe doesn't always succeed. JJ is the kid who smashes his toys together until they break, then glues the parts together wrong, and then extols the virtues of Darth Maulnobi and his lightsaber feet.

I'm not a huge Doug Walker fan, but something he did get me to start paying attention to (thanks to his Scooby Doo review) is when a movie is made "for fans" over story, and prioritizes referencing in-jokes, giving the fans what they either want or expect, or notching things pop culture is used to over telling a story or working well with its characters.

This not only alienates newer viewers and casual fans, it often can alienate hardcore fans themselves - especially ones who do want to see a story in the world they've come to love, because they end up getting "what they want" in a way they didn't actually want it. In a franchise like Star Wars, where fans barely know on an aggregate level what they want, many fans make idealistic demands that they wouldn't actually want because it would be self-defeating in reality, and some loud voices make problematic demands that shouldn't be listened to in the first place, this can be an especially important problem to consider.

A good adaptation (or sequel) knows how to tell a story and accentuate what the fandom loves about the source material, while knowing when to file off the "wants" that don't work. It's not just about doing the one thing fans liked, it's about adapting the spirit that people enjoy.

There are always going to be fans that say "you didn't do that one thing," or "you changed that one thing from what I wanted," but they're rarely anywhere near the majority. They can be ignored. People complained that Rogue One didn't have any lightsaber fights, claiming that meant it "wasn't Star Wars." Rogue One is one of the best and most well received Star Wars movies since the original trilogy (imo it's better than ROTJ) so who cares?

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 14th 2020 at 12:46:34 PM

Sometimes viewers get what they thought they wanted and realize they didn't want it.

Is that why the LEGO Ninjago movie bombed?

I mean, the fact that Rey is his granddaughter already confirms that Palpatine does, indeed, fuck. :/

I recently pointed that fact out to somebody and they kept cursing me for some reason.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jan 14th 2020 at 9:52:10 PM

Palpatine got game

Edited by miraculous on Jan 14th 2020 at 12:52:52 PM

Once you go Sheev, you'll never grieve

Cause you’ll be dead.

I don’t know, Palps feels more like the strangle the hooker kinda guy.