Discussion YMMV / TheRiseOfSkywalker

Anecdotally, it's one of the most universally reviled things I've heard people complain about in the movie

No. Not nearly enough people like that to balance out the people who hate it.

That's a good point. I'm personally in favour of removing the entry.

It is probably a shoehorn— it is a very weird choice of cross-promotion, but both franchises are still very popular, active, and not forgotten. I will remove it on Sandbox.The Rise Of Skywalker YMMV on my next cleanup pass there. Good catch!

Because the source article is not reliable (swshadowcouncil is known for being myopic). Per the forums, it needs sources that are broad like general news outlets or high-profile analysts.

Not to start a shipping debate, but antagonistic figure /=/ abuser (Dating Catwoman and enemies to lovers are a thing). Trying to read him as an abuser might well be Misaimed Fandom at this point, since the movies and various source material have been presenting him as a sympathetic antagonist.

Abuse may not be exactly correct as a term, but I don't think it's fair to dismiss negative readings of Reylo as misaimed. In a lot of Dating Catwoman/enemies to lovers situation, the bad guy doesn't personally torture the good party. I'm not going to debate this any further, but I just don't think it's fair to bar people from writing about Kylo Ren in a negative light just because the mods are fans and think he's sympathetic — sympathetic is very subjective. The fact that Rey didn't visibly suffer from angst after he died speaks to the material's inconsistency in depicting him as sympathetic or non-sympathetic.

I'm of the opinion that the word "abuse" tends to get kicked around a lot to describe anything the speaker sees as bad, but the word actually does apply here. Ren's speech to Rey in TLJ about how "You came from nothing. You are nothing. But not to me," is classic abuser talk.

This could be solved by finding a more reliable citation

Word of God on that is that he felt genuinely connected to her but was terrible at verbalizing it, which can happen. (IE: Darcy's first marriage proposal to Elizabeth. He said a lot of awful things to her, which was asshole-ish of him, but he wasn't her abuser). Kylo has shit social skills, so it's in character for him.

As for Rey not mourning, blame the film's pacing for that. It's not a statement we're not supposed to sympathize with him since all the films went out of their way to show aspects that are sympathetic (struggle with the light, love for parents). Of course it's YMMV whether you *do* sympathize with him, but the writers intended him to be sympathetic.

At the very least, negative readings of Reylo would go under Broken Base, which has a six-month waiting period.

The Abuse part would be valid in Force Awakens, some may view in present in The Last Jedi due to his comments " Your nothing , but not to me" seen as gas lighting. Definately should be put under BrokenBase just to be balanced however which could come under review within six months. Hopefully the writers and directors could add their five cents in for clarity.

TFA had them in as enemies, antagonism is part of that. It's a different dynamic than an abusive relationship. Word of God already commented on TLJ, that Kylo was trying to be genuine but was unintentionally a complete dick about it (for comparison, think of Darcy's first proposal to Elizabeth).

Except his proposal is for her to give up her friends and join the dark side. Not like Mr Darcy. Also there's being a dick and telling somebody they are " nothing" but not to them. That is straight up gaslighting.

Of course it's not *literally* like Mr. Darcy, but in terms of intent (re "I think I'm making a genuine offer but I don't realize it's actually a completely dick thing to say") it's the same. And Mr. Darcy does say some pretty similar stuff to Elizabeth ("your whole family is horrid but *I* will love and accept you"). Is he her abuser? No, just an Innocently Insensitive asshole. Intent matters.

Hmmmm...were going in circles. Clearification if enough sources show certain people viewing Reylo as abusive. It can be re-added correct?

Reliable sources, as in mainstream media or a high-profile analyst. But I would still be inclined to call such viewing Misaimed Fandom because the ST has been portraying Kylo/Ben as a Tragic Villain, not an abuser, and has Word of God talking about him and his relationship with her positively.

But the YMMV is people viewing it as abusive. Not arguing if it is or not. The former could be proven by links the later is a argument with no winner. Not the definition but the viewing.

To clarify, I'm saying that a reliable article proving a portion of people read it as abusive would go under Misaimed Fandom as well. Though granted, that's hypothetical at this point and a bit off-topic, so I apologize.

When the time comes, Star Wars Insider published an article in the issue released in December where Rey and Kylo interactions are compared with the domestic violence cycle of abuse. This is an article published in the official magazine rather than a Word of God statement.

Another high profile source is Hollywood Reporter, Star Wars and the Fate of Toxic Men.

Another highly viewed source is CBR, The Rise of Skywalker Is a Modern-Day Beauty and the Beast.

Kylo offering Rey his hand was a We Can Rule Together gesture, with romantic codings (re as a parallel to Anakin and Padme as per his History Repeats, his clear Villainous Crush on her, etc).

And besides, I think her not mourning is more of the writers' fault than a facet of her character. Angst? What Angst? is not an indication of a lack of feelings, but a note that angst wasn't present where it should have been.

It seems that the romantic interpretation is based on "coding" and speculation on writers' intent rather than what's explicitly in the text. Questions about different interpretations are the whole point of YMMV and the Alternative Character Interpretation trope. I think there's enough there to restore the entry to the ACI entry.

A kiss on the lips is about as explicitly romantic as you can get. Smooch of Victory can go on the cheek, and even then it's still romantic (just not as much as the lips). Nobody kisses someone as a "reward" without liking them.

Besides that, you're using Angst? What Angst? to argue that she doesn't care about him at all, when the movies show she *does* and *should* have reacted to his death. So there's really not a case at all.

A kiss on the lips isn't necessarily romantic. Christine kisses the Phantom in "Phantom of the Opera" because she pities him but she barely mourns him and it's clearly Raoul she loves. Even Finn and Rose's kiss was said to be a heat-of-the-moment thing and they consider themselves friends.

I'm not saying that she doesn't care about him at all, just that a lot of people don't interpret their kiss romantically. Which is the whole point of ACI. We can debate this until the cows come home but the very fact we're debating it at all qualifies it as an ACI entry.

That would depend on which version of Phantom of the Opera you're reading/watching, as well as how the theater (if that's the media) interprets it (And while I despise the sequel, Christine did cheat on Raoul with the Phantom in it).

But that's a completely different story. For the purposes of this debate, in Star Wars, a kiss on the lips has always been romantic (excluding Luke and Leia, but George Lucas hadn't planned on them being siblings in advance, and nobody wants siblings kissing anyway). Finn and Rose did decide they were Better as Friends, but that doesn't mean the romantic feelings didn't exist at that moment, and most of the general audience likely hasn't read supplemental material. The general audience understanding of the Big Damn Kiss in Star Wars is that it's romantic.

A debate in itself does not make something automatically qualified for the trope (ie, debating in cases of trope misuse). Honestly, this seems more like trying to dress up a shipping debate as ACI and an invitation for an edit war, so it's probably best left to shipping tropes.

Anybody else have two cents to throw in on this?

If it was romantic she seemed to move on quite quickly after, not even a mourning period. Smooch of victory is more cheek like to be sure. I know that some audiance reactions where puzzlement to its inclusion. I would lean towards victory kiss unless declartions of romantic nature is declared. Of course Audiance reaction may be in play. Hopefully the writers and directors can add their five cents for clarity.

Again, the moving on quickly is Angst? What Angst? and not an indication she doesn't care. Nobody's going to claim the heroes don't care about Kijima and the millions of lives lost on it just because they move on quickly.

However her lack of reaction , which may or may not be due to bad writing is an issue as to whether it was a romantic gesture or not. Hence awaiting final word from the powers that be would seem the only way to resolve the ambiguity...

Kissing on the lips has always been a romantic gesture in Star Wars. Again, this seems like it's trying to shoehorn in a shipping debate in a trope it doesn't belong in.

"Always?" Luke and Leia would beg to differ. However it was cleared up later. First time was for "luck" so always is up to debate. As is the example for valid reasons.

Can we put down the Lucas retcon Kool-Aid and acknowledge for a moment that that kiss was absolutely meant to be romantic because it hadn't been decided that they were siblings yet, and the writers wanted to keep teasing a love triangle?

Except Leia literally said it was for luck.

That was in A New Hope, and on the cheek. The kiss in Empire Strikes Back was absolutely on the lips and, at the time, romantic.

Good point. Two for removal two for adding. Need a tiebreaker or mod?

Add it. Come on. She caresses his face.

? That's a bit confusing. She caresses his face (affectionately, I assume you mean), so the ACI that it was a Smooch of Victory should be added? Can you clarify?

I meant that it was meant to be romantic. My bad i got confused by this conversation and thought we were arguing whether to add that their relationship is romantic or not. I though the add it was to add that it is romantic

Gotcha. That's 3-2, so I'm gonna delete the ACI (that the kiss was not romantic) permanently.

My bad, I put this in ACI without consulting the discussion first to see it had been debated!

I believe it should be included in ACI since there is heavy disagreement in the fandom, general audience reactions, and in mainstream publications regarding the kiss. This debate itself suggests to me it's an ACI matter. Many people shipped Reylo for years, especially after TLJ, and feel this is the explicit culmination of a romantic storyline. Many people don't believe there was any romantic feeling on Rey's part and it's in line with other non-romantic or spontaneous kisses on the lips exist in canon, like Leia's Take That to Han in kissing Luke, Asajj smooching an enemy she has killed, and Rose kissing Finn with no romance developing out of it. Other people never perceived any romantic tropes from either character and were completely confused about why the kiss happened.

I doubt there's heavy disagreement in the general audience (who *liked* their interactions in TLJ) or mainstream publications (ditto). Parts of the fandom not liking the kiss almost certainly originates from shipping differences, which is not ACI. Rey does explicitly affectionate things before kissing him (caressing his face, looking at his lips), so trying to suggest it's *not* romantic is a stretch. And again, lip kisses are always romantic in the Star Wars films (excluding Luke and Leia, but Lucas hadn't decided they were siblings at that point, so *at the time* it was romantic and later became a Take That! kiss).

If the debate still hotly goes on in 6 months, it can be added to Broken Base. But ACI isn't the place for a shipping debate.

The CM approval thread will take care of it.

Caring a lot about her friends /=/ finding the belonging she seeks (Maz's words from TFA). During the film, Finn tells Rey that he feels like she's gotten distant, to which she says that everybody in the Resistance tells her they know her, but none of them do. That doesn't sound like something that indicates she feels at home in the Resistance—it indicates the exact opposite, if she still feels like nobody there understands her, not even Finn or BB 8 or Poe.

None of the Esoteric Happy Ending entries make sense. Saying that there's nobody left in the galaxy that Rey could possibly find a sense of family with is nonsense, considering she clearly, definitely has a deep connection to Finn and Poe and others in the Resistance.

The other two entries were more speculation than anything, that dig and read more into the ending than the text suggests.

I'm just going to copy + paste what I said above: "Caring a lot about her friends /=/ finding the belonging she seeks (Maz's words from TFA). During the film, Finn tells Rey that he feels like she's gotten distant, to which she says that everybody in the Resistance tells her they know her, but none of them do. That doesn't sound like something that indicates she feels at home in the Resistance—it indicates the exact opposite, if she still feels like nobody there understands her, not even Finn or BB 8 or Poe."

The problem is that there is no text. The film doesn't present any solutions to problems, like how can they not repeat past mistakes if they do a democracy again, or who will be the next leaders? We don't know if Palpatine is really dead, because we don't know how he returned or what the limits of his "unnatural" Sith powers are. There isn't even a shot of how the galaxy's doing like at the end of Rot J, where we saw planets celebrating the Empire's fall.

And, well, the Skywalkers all being dead speaks for itself, doesn't it? Creating new ones (Rey taking the surname) doesn't erase that, or how that family suffered and lost their happy endings.

The movie isn't about who governs the Republic; it's about the conflict that we see on screen. And that conflict is resolved in a happy way. Do we know the exact structure of the new-New Republic? No, but that's not what the movie is about.

How can they not repeat past mistakes? Well, killing Palpatine is a pretty solid start. The past "mistakes" were all his doing. It's not that Democracy was inherently flawed and doomed to fail in the Galaxy, it's that there was a powerful villain deliberately manipulating things to make it fail. And that guy is gone now.

The idea that he might come back again is speculation at best; the film very clearly presents his defeat here as final.

So the entries here are less that this isn't really a happy ending, but more that it is a happy ending: The good guys win, the First Order and Palpatine are destroyed, and the legacy of the Jedi lives — those are all good endings that definitely happened and are happy by any measure — with some bittersweet parts.

And yes, Rey says that early in the movie. Then at the end of the movie she's embracing her two best friends tightly. It's possible for her to have grown in that time. Still, saying there's nobody in the galaxy that she could find family with is at best hyperbole and speculation.

The things you're saying might make it bittersweet, but it doesn't fit the definition of "Esoteric" going by the trope.

In fact, the gist of this entry is already on the film's main page, under Bittersweet Ending.

No, but when this conflict started because of the Republic's government (they didn't believe Leia that the First Order was a threat, they were weak, etc), it's not satisfying to simply end the conflict—the *root* of the problem hasn't been dealt with. Democracy failed during the PT and after the OT—how can they make sure it succeeds this time? Yes, Palpatine was pulling the strings, but that leads to...

Return of the Jedi also presented his defeat as final. Then he's suddenly alive, with no explanation as to how or the limits of his ability to come back/survive. When writers pull a card like that, how are we supposed to believe he'll stay dead (and thus not stir up another galactic conflict)?

The idea he might come back for this movie was speculation as well, yet here he is.

Again, caring for them /=/ considers them her belonging. Of course Rey loves them; of course she'd embrace them. But does she say *anything* to indicate her opinion has changed, that she believes they and the Resistance do know her and that she does belong with them? She doesn't. If the writers wanted her to indicate she'd grown, they would have thrown in a line about that. And she had a Found Family—the Skywalkers/Solos. But when the movie takes them away...well, that's a clear loss on her part.

Democracy didn't "fail." It got blown up. Again, the "problems" with both the Old and New Republics weren't that the governments didn't work, it's that they were manipulated and destroyed.

You believe he'll stay dead until he doesn't. This trope page is about this movie. Not hypothetical future movies. Is ROTJ retroactively an Esoteric Happy Ending because we didn't know for sure that the heroes would live happily ever after? Is every movie an Esoteric Happy Ending because we don't see the full scale of their lives after the film, and therefore don't know that everything turns out OK?

She doesn't have to say anything. She certainly doesn't say, "Now that Ben is gone, I am doomed to loneliness and can't have any sense of family," but you seem to be taking it as an absolute given.

Yes, she has a clear loss. But she has also very clearly gained a lot.

This does not qualify it as Esoteric Happy Ending. Please read that trope more thoroughly. It's clearly when what the author intends as a happy ending is read as not happy at all. There are elements of clear, unambiguous happy ending here — First Order and Palpatine defeated, the main trio of heroes is alive and well, the Jedi continue.

Are there elements that make it bittersweet? Yes. Yes, I agree with you that it is not a perfect, happy, storybook ending for all involved. But that makes it a Bittersweet Ending — which, again, is already on the main page — not an Esoteric Happy Ending.

We're not talking about other movies here. We're talking about this one. An Esoteric Happy Ending occurs when there are dark or horrific implications to a "happy ending" that are not addressed. An ending having the elements for a happy ending does not disqualify it from being an Esoteric Happy Ending.

The movie raises dark, hard questions that are not answered. How did Palpatine come back? "Sith powers" is vague, unsatisfactory, and doesn't give us a guarantee it won't happen again. How will the government move forward? They don't touch on that. Back in the OT it was clear they were fighting for democracy, which we had no reason to believe wouldn't work; but here they're fighting for a democracy that already failed/was manipulated/didn't work/however you want to put it. How are they supposed to protect it from that again in the future?

Because it was already stated that her goal was to find belonging, back in TFA. The films presented the Skywalkers/Solos as that belonging, and then she lost them. The films also presented her friends as her friends, but not her belonging. If that has shifted, she *would* need to say something (or else have it shown). Additionally, the film doesn't show her grief over the Skywalkers/Solos or address how she's coping with losing her Found Family, just hurrying along to have her call herself Rey Skywalker as if that makes up for what she lost. That is not happy, despite the film pushing it as happy.

She has gained, but the film wants to ignore what she lost.

It's pretty clear we're not going to change each other's minds, so anyone willing to jump in?

Again, please read the trope. The Laconic, at least, which reads, "Only the author thinks their happy ending is happy."

No part of the main page's description matches what you're saying. It does not say it's about dark things "unaddressed," it says that what the author thought was a happy ending does not meet a reasonable viewer's expectation of a happy ending.

The trope is manifestly not "there are questions unanswered." The trope is, "The author thought these things would make the ending happy, but they do not."

The author here thought that, for instance, defeating the Empire was a happy part of the ending, and I think we can all agree that it is. The author here thought that the main trio surviving was a happy part of the ending, and I think we can all agree that it is. The author here thought that the Jedi legacy living on through Rey was a happy part of the ending, and we can all agree that it is.

Now, if the film were treating the Skywalkers' and Solos' deaths as "happy"? Then it'd be Esoteric Happy Ending. If the film were treating the collapse of the Republic as "happy"? Then, yes, it would count.

But it doesn't. The film treats those deaths as sad, tragic events. That there isn't a half hour tacked onto the end for a Galactic Civics 101 lesson doesn't make it an Esoteric Happy Ending, and I really don't think anyone went to a Star Wars movie for a primer on the galaxy's government.

The film isn't ignoring what she lost. What she lost is right there, in Force Ghost form, in the ending. If anything it's showing she has found family, in the people who — as this and the previous movie took pains to remind us — are never really gone.

Okay regarding the "belonging" thing, she only questions whether people really know her once in the whole movie. It's right after she finds out she's Palpatine's granddaughter and the line specifically is "Everyone says they know me, but now I'm afraid no one knows the real me". In context it sounds more like her expressing self-doubt after finding out her heritage and fear about what she could become rather than a statement about her friends' inability to understand her.

Since she eventually comes to terms with this and accepts that her heritage doesn't define her, I don't think she needs to explicitly say that she has found belonging in the Resistance. Her doubts are about herself not them. She overcomes those doubts and ends the film with confidence in her role as a Jedi and having a heartfelt moment with her friends. Her sense of belonging was only in question due to the Palpatine stuff and that is resolved in the climax.

Jumping into this after ATT asked for more people to weigh in. From my point of view...

The bit about the future of democracy and things I can agree is speculative. I do think, though, that a conclusion to the so-called "Skywalker Saga" that ends up with every single Skywalker dead and all that they fought for (the Rebellion, the Jedi) having gone down in abject defeat, with maybe a chance for something similar (a future order of the Knights of Rey) emerging in the future, should qualify.

That Zombie Palpatine and the Empire 2.0/Final Order/whatever were defeated is generally presented as a good thing, and since the movie presents them as mustache-twirling villains whenever it bothers to give them any characterization at all, that makes sense. As far as I understand it, the issue is whether this is enough to outweigh the bigger tragedy of the Skywalkers to qualify as a straight happy ending, or even a straight Bittersweet Ending. The Rise of Skywalker seems to portray the Jedi ghosts as happy with being replaced with Rey Palpatine, but given a lot of fan comments I have seen in various places, at the very least, not all viewers appear to agree that they ought to be.

On the page defining the Esoteric Happy Ending trope, it says: "Not to be confused with a Bittersweet Ending, in which the darker or less pleasant elements are acknowledged, although it [the Esoteric Happy Ending] can also frequently be caused when those same darker elements out-weigh the pleasant ones in the minds of some viewers" (emphasis added). That would seem to be what is the case here.

“Not everyone agrees that they ought to be”

Wouldn’t that be a case of Angst? What Angst? rather than Esoteric Happy Ending? In the film itself, Leia and Luke are obviously content and have accepted Rey as part of their family.The film itself is positive, it’s just that other people think it should be more negative.

The film treating an ending largely positively that at least a large subset of viewers think is not really all that happy after all is pretty much the definition of Esoteric Happy Ending, though. The lack of sadness by individual characters for various bad things that happen is certainly worth mentioning (we have a couple of entries for that trope already), but the bigger impression goes beyond that alone.

As it correctly says on the current page, Palpatine actually enjoyed complete success in having his revenge on all his enemies from the original films, even if his scheme to become Empress Reypatine ultimately failed. Him pulling a Taking You with Me on the Republic, the Jedi and the Skywalker and Solo families, thereby destroying all the hard-won achievements of the original heroes, looks pretty bleak to a lot of people, not just in terms of the reaction from the ghosts but also objectively.

His scheme to re-take over the Galaxy as emperor/empress was the big plan. I don't remember him focusing on "revenge," and even if he did, the actual people he'd be revenging on were dead before the movie even happened. It seems a stretch to say he had "complete success" with something he didn't actually do.

I'll be honest, most of the "bad ending" stuff that's being brought up seems more like the fans focusing on the negative. Ben dying is sad, sure — but saying that it absolutely must mean that Rey is so emotionally devastated that she'll never be able to find a sense of family is stretching things way beyond the text of the film.

The Skywalkers and Solos being dead is sad, sure — but in the larger scheme of things? They died making the galaxy a better place, and the Force ghosts appear to be satisfied that Rey is taking up the mantle in their stead.

The Republic government being blown up was sad — two movies ago. This movie ends with the entirety of what was the Republic uniting in the fight. If that isn't supposed to indicate that they'll be able to pull together and govern the galaxy, I don't know what it is supposed to indicate.

So, yeah, to me it seems less like the sad bits overwhelm the happy bits, and more like a subset of the fans is bound and determined to make the sad bits overwhelm the happy bits. I mean, look at how many people tried to call the movie a failure on this page — when it was in the middle of holding the #1 spot on its opening weekend.

I think the issue is 5 long bullet points is too much for a single ending. Edit them down to one should keep it objective.

It seems a stretch to say he had "complete success" with something he didn't actually do.

But this movie establishes for the first time (by way of Retcon) that everything bad that happened to the Skywalkers was in fact the direct result of conspiracies by Palpatine. From destroying Luke Skywalker's new Jedi to leading Ben Solo to the dark side and ruining the Han-Leia marriage to scuttling the new Republic. He really did ruin all of their lives, as well as everything they worked hard for decades to build, and then caused the deaths of their whole family. As far as getting even with the Skywalkers goes, his revenge was complete.

Whether the good outweighs the bad in the ending is of course to some degree subjective. If this were a standalone movie, I would personally agree more or less with your analysis: some of the things currently listed on the page are indeed speculative, while old mentors dying and such is part of the genre, and does not by itself automatically invalidate a happy ending. The major problem here is that The Rise of Skywalker is very prominently billed as the conclusion to the "Skywalker Saga"—meaning the tale of the original Skywalker heroes of the George Lucas stories. Thus, it is marketed as part of their story as well as that of Rey Palpatine. And a story where the heroes ultimately fail at everything they tried to do, their country is overthrown, their families break up and they all die is unhappy, even if the bad guy is also killed by his granddaughter somewhere along the way.

On the level of the larger story, there is also the fact that there is no real growth to the narrative or setting. At the end of the day, all that Rey has really accomplished is at best a reset back to the status quo ante Disney Trilogy. When weighed against all the suffering caused by the bad guys (both for the nameless billions of people who were genocided by the First Order, and more viscerally for the protagonists of the original films who had their lives and dreams ruined and their family line wiped out), it is easy to see why that strikes many people as harsh on second thought.

Ultimately, though, the issue is not really whether you or I as individuals think the ending was mainly happy or not. What the Esoteric Happy Ending trope requires is that some significant subset of the audience views it as less happy than intended. And from looking even casually at available fan reactions online, that certainly seems to be the case with The Rise of Skywalker.

They "ultimately fail at everything they try to do"?

So the movie ends with Palpatine ruling a new empire, Finn, Poe and the Resistance destroyed, and Rey falling to the Dark Side? Odd, I must have missed that part.

See, this is what I'm talking about. An ending where the villains are defeated and the heroes live to rebuild and carry on the Jedi legacy is being twisted into "they completely failed and the badguys won."

Yes, it was billed as the "conclusion" of the Skywalker story. Conclusion meaning the end, and we knew years ago when they first announced TFA that the trilogy was going to be about them passing the torch to the next generation because that's what they described it as.

I think, at the absolute bare minimum, we nuke everything that amounts to, "Something else might go wrong in the future," because what might happen in the future is by definition not something that occurs in this film.

The stuff about Luke, Leia and Han fits much better under Happy Ending Override — where it's already listed — than in Esoteric Happy Ending.

No need for sarcasm. As portrayed, the original heroes did objectively and literally fail at everything that they worked for all their lives, and died as failures. Not a single one even lived to see the end of the Empire 2.0. That happened after they were dead, they had to watch it as ghosts (and poor Han, for obvious reasons, did not even get to do that). Rey did succeed in tricking the zombie Emperor into vaporizing himself, so her story ends more happily than theirs (though Kylo still died on her). As I already agreed, if this were a standalone movie about the Rise of Rey, the ending would be a standard Bittersweet Ending. That is not how Disney bills it, however.

The invalidation of the original heroes' achievements is a Happy Ending Override in itself, but The Rise of Skywalker goes beyond that, because the ending here in the big conclusion is obviously not done to set up sequel drama. The best example is probably the death of the Skywalker bloodline. Whatever you may think of the offscreen treatment of the original heroes earlier, that certainly was not needed to be able to tell a sequel story or pass the torch to a new generation. And indeed, a great many people seem to consider the death of the last Skywalker an unhappy conclusion to the epic, multi-generational "Skywalker Saga". Even when accompanied by cheering, lesbians kissing and the apparent(?) final death of Zombie Palpatine.

As for me personally, I tend to agree with that to a considerable extent, even if I don't always share in all of the more myopic complaints some diehard fans make about the film (e.g., the flying stormtroopers not looking like they did in some comic, or whatever that hashtag was all about). I think that, thematically, that was an unfortunate creative decision, that does in fact seriously undermine the happy ending J. J. Abrams and friends clearly wanted to present. My personal views alone, however, are neither here nor there as for whether an Esoteric Happy Ending entry is valid or not.

The speculative troping about the future of democracy in the galaxy and such, on the other hand, I can agree should probably be moved elsewhere. That seems more appropriate for Wild Mass Guessing, or perhaps Fridge Horror in some cases.

They did not "die as failures," though. They succeeded in what they set out to do — overthrow the Empire and reestablish Democracy in the galaxy, and there was a functioning, established government for 30 some-odd years.

Saying they "die as failures" because 30 years after their victory something else happens is like saying a doctor is a failure because they person they saved from a heart attack at age 30 gets shot and dies at age 60.

And the end of their lives all helped guide Rey to winning over the Emperor, and all contributed to Kylo Ren's defeat/redemption in one way or another, so I don't see how you can call them "failures" for that, either. Luke gave his life helping the Resistance escape and continue to fight, and seriously undermined Kylo Ren as a leader; Leia's death is most directly responsible for him becoming Ben again. And while I'm sure it wasn't his goal, Han's death shook the foundation of Kylo Ren's darksidedness more than anything else.

That they died before things got fully set to right doesn't mean they "died as failures," any more than Obi Wan died as a failure because he didn't kill Darth Vader or the Emperor. They died fighting for what they believed in and their efforts, in the end, contributed to defeating Palpatine and restoring order to the Galaxy.

Hardly what I'd call "dying as failures."

The Republic collapsed completely the very same day some Empire wannabes bombed their capital. We are not supposed to think about that, but if considered realistically, this means it was an extremely weak, unstable and incompetent government. (Would the United States disintegrate into warlord states literally overnight if terrorists somehow managed to nuke Capitol Hill?) Not much of an achievement to create that.

Kylo Ren completely ignored Han's death at the time. His leadership was not affected by anything Luke did in any meaningful way, at least not as depicted onscreen, since he was still completely in charge a year later. Leia did help Rey defeat him once, though as I recall it, his turning back to the light was more because Rey healed him (and wanted to hold his hand) than because of what Leia said.

As for the original heroes as depicted in the Disney Trilogy, in very brief:

Han—his marriage and family are a failure, he runs away to hide, is found by Rey doing tired LARPing as his own 30 years younger self, and is killed pointlessly by Kylo Ren. Sad.

Luke—apparently never married or even had a girlfriend, his Jedi are a failure, he runs away to hide, is found by Rey milking some disgusting monster, and dies from exhaustion after Force-skyping with Kylo. Sad.

Leia—her Republic is a failure (and then buried by Hux), her marriage and family are a failure, she runs away to lead a minuscule Resistance, is admittedly not as pathetic as the men are written, but then dies very anticlimactically from the effort of Force-tweeting Kylo a brief message. On the whole, still pretty sad.

All of the protagonists became sad, bitter old men or women after all that they loved failed, crashed and burned. None of them even lived to see the death of Palpatine, the villain they thought they had defeated in Return of the Jedi, but really failed to defeat. Their families failed and died out. Leia at least was written as trying to do something useful, unlike the others, but they all still died with victory nowhere in sight—indeed, without so much as a plan for how their side could possibly win.

Thus, as failures. Or at least, this is how I see it. What they do and what happens, as described above, is the objective facts; the significance (or lack of it) imputed to their actions is my interpretation. Yours may obviously differ from it.

In any case, I would venture that this tangent is beginning to move a little bit off topic. What we are now discussing is shading over more and more into the Character Derailment and Bad Writing in general of the Disney Trilogy as a whole, rather than the Esoteric Happy Ending pertaining to TROS specifically. If you want to restate your position on these things, I won't mind letting you have the last word, but after that we should probably return to the main matter.

Palpatine won in the sense that the Skywalker, who he hated for his defeat, all die for nothing since Ben died, the galaxy has been caught in war, and several planets have been blown up thanks to Palpatine's machinations, The new republic that the the old trio fought for has been destroyed, Palpatine could probably come back, Rey is miserable and alone thanks to Ben sacrificing herself, opening herself up to the Dark side down the road, and his bloodline that the movie paints as both powerful and attuned to the dark (hence Rey having an affinity for Force Lightning ) will continue, while the Skywalkers, the actual family that most people cared about died all either in vain or corrupted then died. Sure it has unfortunate implications, but the ending is pretty hypocritical about it, ( Oh your family truly doesn't define you, so hide your actual family name and take another one. ) and really people are down that a movie called Rise of Skywalker has the family die while Palpatine's family lives on.

Palpatine, the guy who was willing to destroy his own empire in the event that Vader or Luke don't succeed him as Emperor would surely see this as a last laugh victory. Sure he wasn't able to control the galaxy, but he was able to spite Luke Skywalker's jedi order, and destroy the Republic, how many Sith Lords can boast they destroyed the republic and Jedi Order TWICE?

Additionally, it's not entirely convincing that Leia had a parental relationship with Rey, considering she takes the name Skywalker, not Organa at the end. That and Rey knew Leia for like a year, and as an adult, which is why people consider Rey taking the name Skywalker not a happy ending.

The film clearly wants to say that family and blood are unimportant and individualism reigns supreme. However, evidently not all fans agree with this, thinking instead that the physical death of a family is tragic and regrettable. This is a common enough sentiment even in the American culture of today, and much more so still in less individualistic ones (for example, in Asia). As such, it seems fair enough to report it honestly.

In any case, Rey was never adopted by anyone. As presented in the film, she took up the name of the dead Skywalkers on her own initiative, with at best the silent assent of the ghosts after the fact. She knew Luke and Han literally only for days, Leia for about a year, and none of them as parents or siblings. Comparing that relationship to adoption as defined in real life is stretching things very thin.

It's worth mentioning that Unfortunate Implications does require a citation showing that it's not just one person's opinion. There is a thread you might find helpful: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=15454914480A97304800

I do believe that, technically, it can also fall under Author's Saving Throw because they assuredly cut her screentime to placate the Vocal Minority that was her hatedom.

But yeah, I'd say the outcry of "really? You just so happened to cut the character that was the biggest target of racist and misogynistic attacks?" warrants an entry.

EDIT: The entry already exists as an Unfortunate Implication.

I've pulled it and added a note in the page history that anyone unilaterally adding it gets banned:

• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: Part of the reason for the film's mixed reception, especially as it results in Harsher in Hindsight for the entire franchise. Sure, the Resistance wins in the end, but the galaxy has just been through another war and dictatorship, the Jedi still aren't coming back in strength and number any time soon, and we have no idea who is going to be running things now (especially considering how poorly the last attempt at restoring the Republic went). Then there's the fate of the Skywalker/Solo family, some of the central characters of the saga. Thanks to Happy Ending Override, all of them end up dying in tragic circumstances, many of them fail at most of their major goals and end up losing everyone and everything they care about. Rey does survive to continue the legacy of the family and the Jedi, but she still has to live with the fact that most of her 'adopted' family are dead along with her soulmate Ben Solo, and this is on top of the fact she was still technically abandoned by her biological family. Considering that Star Wars is usually quite an idealistic franchise, it's a surprisingly bleak outcome that caught viewers offguard.

Would Angst Aversion work better ?

Ending Aversion, maybe? I'm not sure if it fits very well (how many people are actually staying away from the film because of the ending?), but it's an Audience Reaction that specifically deals with off-putting endings.

Ending Aversion is when potential new fans are put off from starting a long series because they hear the ending is bad. I seriously doubt there is a significant portion of Star Wars newbies in the year 2019 who are saying, "Well, I was all set to check out this "A New Hope" thing, but I hear Episode IX is kinda bad so screw it."

Isn't it possible to apply Ending Aversion to the sequel trilogy or the film itself instead of Star Wars as a whole? The Ending Aversion page already lists some sequels. Even then I don't know if enough potential fans decide to skip the trilogy/film due to its ending, but these reactions are probably more common than "I won't even give the original trilogy a chance because I heard the ST had a disappointing ending".

It seems to me that if you have to try this hard to find the right Audience Reaction to tack on the beginning of a particular paragraph, it's more likely that you're shoehorning than that it's actually an example of anything in particular.

Fair enough. I guess Ending Aversion doesn't work here. If it's for Star Wars as a whole, it probably doesn't work because people still seem willing to watch the original trilogy. If it's just for the film or ST, you can't count stuff like the Happy Ending Override. I doubt that the paragraph fits any audience reaction. I don't think we need it anyway — we have the Esoteric Happy Ending entry.

I think the last two would work for Family-Unfriendly Aesop, the first might be Accidental Aesop, and the second would be a Broken Aesop given that TLJ makes a point that Rey's parents were terrible people that abandoned her.

That makes sense; any objections?

Alright, it's been a day, so I'm gonna add them.

TLJ doesn't really make a point about Rey's parents being terrible people. That was largely Kylo and Rey's own patchy memories working against her (since even she states she doesn't remember them well in TFA), which was probably done to allow writers an easy out of going "oh by the way! Turns out they were important!"

It's not them being terrible people that's important to the Broken Aesop, it's that their abandonment of Rey really wounded her. The act was terrible, whether or not her parents were. This movie instead tries to present being abandoned as good for her.

Hi! Thanks for your thoughts.

- Luke probably knew it (since he did get shocked with Force Lightning), and maybe he told enough people that word spread around. So I think while it's unexplained in the film, it's not hard to deduce.

- Well, Luke never knew Darth Sidiuos's name.

- You're not the only one to feel the film disrespected several characters, particularly Rose, the Skywalkers, Finn, and Rey—I've seen other people complain. I'm not sure what the trope for that would be. Maybe Character Derailment, but I don't think we're supposed to list that.

- That's a Plot Hole, and noted on the main page.

- His plan does come off as vague and unexplained on many levels (where did all those ships come from?). I guess you could call it Xanatos Speed Chess?

For the Darth Sidious name, Luke cited it in the Last Jedi. No explanation to how he know it however. Maybe Anakin's, Obi-Wan's or Yoda's Ghost tell him ? But I explain why this bothers me so much : Emperor Palpatine has always considered Darth Sidious as his real self and Palpatine as his public identity, a mask to keep apparences. He is Darth Sidious first and Palpatine second. So not mentionning Darth Sidious at least once is something I feel is really really missing.

I know this is cited in the Anti-Climax entry, but I also think the final confrontation vs Palpatine/Darth Sidious should have been so much much more than what the movie offer. This is crap to be honest, this should have been a grand scale battle between him and Rey (like what we have in Revenge of the Sith for example). I feel very cheated.

For the Rotten Tomatoes entry, adding something along the lines of:

"Critics have a much lower opinion of the film on Rotten Tomatoes than the audience, citing reasons such as choppy pacing, lack of creativity or emotional resonance, heavy-handed exposition, and disappointing ending."

should explain the disparity. (just taken from a glance through the posted critic reviews)

I don't think the Metacritic example is Critical Dissonance, since that's when there's a gap in the audience/critic opinion and that score is low, but the same. It and the cinemascore are something, though. My guess would be they point to Sequelitis since only the RT audience score is high. At the least Contested Sequel.

The page doesn't mention it being strictly pre-release, just that it consists of wild theories, so I think you should be good to go.

What, and spoil the narrative that this wouldn't be another lazy, zero-effort Disney sequel? You're expecting too much from TV tropes.