Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker [Spoilers Ahoy!]

[Peelee]

Secondly, Xykon isn't the villain in OOTS, and hasn't been since at least the end of the first dungeon arc.

And now, to interrupt this discussion on Star Wars with some OOTS. Oh, how the turntables have...

The MacGuffin is not the antagonist. The MacGuffin is the object sought by the antagonist. Narratively speaking, it does not matter what it does—only that the antagonist is willing to kill the protagonist to get it. That is the source of the conflict. It does not matter what is in the rift, it matters who is willing to kill whom to get it, even if they are mistaken about its usefulness. What is in the rift is only important insofar as it may, at some point, change who is willing to kill whom and why. And that IS important, because those details will change the shape of what happens, but not as the source of conflict. The Snarl is not the threat; Xykon is the threat. The Snarl's powers have as much relevance to the quest to get the Snarl as the exact properties of the glowing briefcase have on the plot of Pulp Fiction, or the exact dollar value of the statue in The Maltese Falcon.

Likewise, the setting is not the protagonist. What happens to the world is only important because the protagonists are the sort of people who care about what happens to the world. If Team Evil or the Linear Guild kills the entire Order of the Stick and then takes the Gate only to find that it does not do what they thought it did...how does that help the Order of the Stick? They will still be dead, and the story is about them. The Linear Guild is not a threat because they will do something bad with the Gate; they are a threat because they will kill the Order of the Stick to do it. At the end of Star Wars, one does not care that the Death Star is about to blow up Yavin 4; one cares that the Death Star is about to kill the protagonists, some of whom happen to be on Yavin 4.

If one does not care about the protagonists or antagonists and is not emotionally invested in their struggles—whether those struggles are external or internal, relevant to the MacGuffin plot or not—and all one cares about is the resolution of the MacGuffin chase, then you will almost certainly be bored with a lot of the material I'm producing. And more importantly, I won't care. The Snarl plot is part of the armature upon which I hang the characters' conflicts; it is not the whole of the story. The strip is titled The Order of the Stick, not The Chase for the Snarl or even Saving the World. Ultimately, it seems like you want the story to be about things it is not going to be about, so it's unlikely you are ever going to enjoy it.

Big blue bolding mine. Xykon is the villain. Other antagonists exist, but Xykon is the main one, the big bad, the primary villain of this story.

[Lord Raziere]

And now, to interrupt this discussion on Star Wars with some OOTS. Oh, how the turntables have...


Big blue bolding mine. Xykon is the villain. Other antagonists exist, but Xykon is the main one, the big bad, the primary villain of this story.

I mean, Redcloak at times seems to be a better villain from an intelligent planning and such standpoint, but one must remember that

Spoiler: Start of Darkness Spoilers

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Redcloak was one girlfriend-perhaps even one date- away from just dropping the whole plan until Xykon showed up in the prequel book to ruin his chance at putting it all behind him.

After all, Redcloak is still a teenager who hasn't aged due to the cloaks magic. he is kind of vulnerable to that sort of...influence. if the OOTS somehow turns Redcloak by finding him a goblinoid girlfriend that would be hilarious and completely in character.

[Zevox]

Xykon is the main villain of Order of the Stick, definitely. But the difference between Xykon and Kylo Ren is enormous. Xykon is a huge threat - much more powerful as an individual than any of the heroes, to the point where if he ever fought them seriously prior to the final book (and possibly even then, for all we technically know at this point) he'd almost certainly kill them all with ease. And additionally, he's a threat to the entire world simply due to the nature of his plans. Oh sure, his intention to take control of the Snarl is impossible, and he's too dumb to come up with another way to do anything with the Gate that would actually benefit him, but doing anything with those Gates risks the world's destruction, and he's a destructive enough force, especially when frustrated, that he might easily inadvertently destroy the Gate and doom the world if not stopped. Hell, he's psychotic enough that once he learns that Redcloak has deceived him about controlling the Snarl, he might just deliberately destroy the last Gate in a fit of rage.

Kylo Ren, by contrast? Mechalich is completely right that he has no real goals besides emulating Darth Vader in a general sense. But he's so bad at that that it's hard to take him seriously as he attempts to do it - every time we see him trying to act in a leadership role, he's completely inept at it, and easily fooled by others. And while he has some individual power, there's no indication that it's anything special by force-user standards, and indeed he was already defeated one-on-one by Rey, at a time when she had just learned maybe a couple hours ago that she was force sensitive at all. That seriously reduces how threatening he appears. With Rey learning some actual control of her abilities and him not advancing at all (since he killed Snoke without ever getting more training), there's no reason to take it as anything but a foregone conclusion that she'll be able to beat him. And while he has the First Order technically, he doesn't have their respect at all, and it's questionable how long he can keep that many people in line through fear of his force powers alone.

Honestly, Xykon is a much better example of what they might have been partially trying to go for with Kylo Ren: a villain who is terrifying in part because of how emotionally unstable he is. Because Xykon has the power to back that up. If he snaps and just decides to destroy the world, he genuinely could do that, both because of his power and because of the plot he's been set up with. If Kylo Ren snapped, it'd just be a D-list supervillain's temper tantrum - he'd cause some damage in the process, sure, but there's no fear that he wouldn't be stopped, or that he'd accomplish anything meaningful in the process.

[TheSummoner]

And now, to interrupt this discussion on Star Wars with some OOTS. Oh, how the turntables have...

[big long quote]

Big blue bolding mine. Xykon is the villain. Other antagonists exist, but Xykon is the main one, the big bad, the primary villain of this story.

There's an argument to be made about word of the author vs what a viewer interprets based from what is actually shown. I personally lean towards agreeing with you and getting into that discussion in detail would drag this way off topic, but it is worth mentioning.

More to the point, though...

I really don't get why nobody gives Kylo Ren any credibility as a villain. Seriously, this is Kylo Ren at the end of TLJ. Having been humiliated by lucky low-level adventurers doesn't remove any of the threat Xykon represents, it only makes him angrier and more dangerous.

Not at all comparable. In that comic, Xykon just thrashed one of the protagonists and was angry because they managed to escape alive. Xykon WON that fight. Xykon is shown to outclass V even after a massive, temporary, one-time power boost. V getting lucky and surviving the encounter does not mean that Xykon isn't dangerous, scary, and someone to be taken seriously. On the other hand, Kyle lost to an untrained novice. He's shown to have incredibly powerful force abilities, even pulling off tricks Vader was never shown to do in the OT (freezing lasers in mid-air instead of deflecting them. In an interview, they said this was specifically done to showcase that he's supposedly very powerful), but he still loses to junk picker who should've been cut down in about 12 seconds. It's as much to do with her being a mary sue as with him being a failure as a villain, but the end result is the same. He loses every time they fight and isn't seen as threatening.

Now, compare this to what we've previously been shown happens when someone who hasn't been fully trained tries to take on a sith lord.

[Zevox]

[Kylo Ren's failure as a villain is] as much to do with her being a mary sue as with him being a failure as a villain, but the end result is the same.

Have to disagree there - Rey is not a Mary Sue. Her progression with her force powers is poorly handled and the writers clearly want her to get to the point of being a badass quicker than she really should, sure, but that alone doesn't a Mary Sue make. If anything, one of the biggest problems with her is that she's the main character in theory only, and in reality is frequently just a bystander in what are theoretically her own movies. In TFA her biggest accomplishment is flying the Falcon as she and Finn escape Jakku - otherwise, she just gets captured and then escapes from the villains, while the real resolution of the plot comes from Han, Finn, and Chewie destroying Starkiller Base's shields and letting Poe and company come blow it up. And in The Last Jedi, she fails to convince Luke to come back, gets barely any training out of him very reluctantly, fails in her efforts to redeem Kylo and only escapes because he kills Snoke, and then technically helps the Resistance get away, but in a manner that really wasn't necessary anyway.

To be fair, in the Last Jedi nobody really accomplishes much of anything. The only meaningful events are the deaths of Snoke and Luke, and the reduction of the Resistance to so few remaining people. But in the Force Awakens, the big accomplishments belong to all of the other heroes besides Rey, while her biggest thing is just finding out that she has force powers at all. This is not the resume of a character who is warping the story around them like a Mary Sue does, it's more the resume of a main character that the writers are just bungling their execution of all over the place.

[Peelee]

I agree with just about everything both of y'all said, but I saw an opportunity to derail a Star Wars thread with OotS, and cmon, how often does that happen?

[Theaitetos]

Destroying the planet would doom the moon in time, but the Rebels would still be able to evacuate while that happened (especially in the new cannon, where they can jump to hyperspace straight from the hangars...)

I always assumed it would take longer to recharge the superlaser for a second shot than it would to orbit Yavin and blow up the moon. Even when it fires on ships in RotJ, the Death Star's rate of fire isn't all that fast.

Or… this.

[Daimbert]

I mean I can't see how any one movie could ever ruin somebody's fandom.

I mean I really don't like the prequels but I just don't watch them. I don't cut off all Star Wars because of them.

I'm still reading through the thread while doing other things, but this has come up in a couple of places and I think my story might be helpful.

I'm a huge Star Wars fan, and have been one since I was a kid. I have two full shelves that contain pretty much all of the Star Wars EU, all of which I've read repeatedly (except for Fate of the Jedi) and the ones missing from the shelves are things that I have but dislike enough that I'll never read them (The Joiner King trilogy, for the most part). I watch the movies, including the prequels, fairly regularly, and in fact just watched those movies again yesterday in an all-day marathon. And I don't care that much for the prequels, but watch them as part of that marathon.

How TLJ "ruined my fandom" is in the sense that after watching that movie, I had NO interest in watching this movie and pretty much any others. In general, I was primed to pretty much get every Star Wars movie and/or book at some point, just habitually. I'm not sure when or if I'll ever get RoS or when or if I'll ever watch it. And unless a new movie or show sells itself to me, I have no interest in watching them either. I'm no longer interested in Star Wars, meaning that I'm not interested in anything new in the franchise. That's ... not what this trilogy was intended to do, surely.

And you know what? I actually don't even dislike TLJ that much. I actually liked it slightly better than I liked TFA. But it along with TFA and Rogue One (I haven't bothered to see Solo) pretty much killed my interest in the franchise. Rogue One isn't bad, but wasn't that interesting either, as it answered a mildly interesting question with a kinda mildly interesting answer that was inferior to what had gone on before. TFA didn't set up the new universe and got worse the more you thought about what it was saying. And TLJ didn't add to the universe and its best quality was that it was so ambiguous that you could pretty much interpret it any way you wanted, but that's not going to set up well for a final movie. None of these are what made me like Star Wars.

So it's not about cutting off the past, but cutting off the future. And while it didn't do it for you, I imagine that there were a number of fans who lost interest in Star Wars from the prequels.

[Mechalich]

Big blue bolding mine. Xykon is the villain. Other antagonists exist, but Xykon is the main one, the big bad, the primary villain of this story.

You can be the principle threat and not be a villain. Xykon is the threat, but Redcloak (and more recently the Fiend Trio) is the villain. Xykon supplies force, Redcloak supplies agency. This is actually a common dynamic. In OT Star Wars Darth Vader is the primary threat, but the Emperor is the villain.

Kylo Ren is certainly a suitable threat to the ST's heroes. He certainly has motive to kill them, but he has no plans beyond that. It's just a personal vendetta. Likewise, he kills Snoke because he's just furious with the man for how he's been treated (and how he's treating the girl he's crushing on for some reason), not because he desires to actually be the Supreme Leader of the First Order or rule the galaxy.

A lot of this has to do with the epic mode. OOTS is not an epic, it's a character driven comedy, so The Giant can rightly say the setting is not the protagonist (though this has become somewhat less true over time, especially with Thor's most recent reveals, as the story has accrued additional epic elements), but in an epic the setting very much is one of the protagonists. Whether or not the bad guys or the good guys end up in charge is extremely important to the story regardless of their character identities. If Luke, Han, and Leia had all died at the end of the OT but still triumphed - which is actually very possible given how ROTJ unfolds - that would still matter. That's why there's a giant celebration including all sorts of minor characters at the end.

Star Wars, after all, begins with a deliberate reference to the setting: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. The ultimate fate of the galaxy is extremely important, and the story revolves around changing said fate. In the OT, the goal is to liberate the galaxy from rule by an evil tyrant. In the PT it's to prevent the rise of tyranny. The ST starts out with the goal of preventing a tyrant - Snoke - from conquering the galaxy. That works. Once Snoke gets bisected though, what goal do the bad guys have? Sure the First Order still wants to conquer and control the galaxy, but you can't really use large government entities as a villain, because the heroes can't blast them in the face. 'If we win this battle we will seize some modest strategic advantage!' generally doesn't make for a grand story. That's why actual historical fiction tends to compress timelines and massively pump up the strategic importance of battles to create the artificial appearance of decisiveness.

Have to disagree there - Rey is not a Mary Sue. Her progression with her force powers is poorly handled and the writers clearly want her to get to the point of being a badass quicker than she really should, sure, but that alone doesn't a Mary Sue make. If anything, one of the biggest problems with her is that she's the main character in theory only, and in reality is frequently just a bystander in what are theoretically her own movies. In TFA her biggest accomplishment is flying the Falcon as she and Finn escape Jakku - otherwise, she just gets captured and then escapes from the villains, while the real resolution of the plot comes from Han, Finn, and Chewie destroying Starkiller Base's shields and letting Poe and company come blow it up. And in The Last Jedi, she fails to convince Luke to come back, gets barely any training out of him very reluctantly, fails in her efforts to redeem Kylo and only escapes because he kills Snoke, and then technically helps the Resistance get away, but in a manner that really wasn't necessary anyway.

Rey is a poorly defined character who displays a very high level of competency and at least occasionally displays OP abilities that she dubiously justified in possessing. Whether or not she's a Mary Sue is mostly a matter of just how broadly you choose to define the term. But yes, one of her core problems is that she lacks agency in the films where she is nominally the hero. A bring part of the problem is that Rey's primary motive is to belong. That makes sense given her backstory, but it's not actually a motivational factor for deeds of great heroism. Rey's just not a very ambitious person. She wants a life and a family that's not surviving as a junk scavenger on Jakku, because who wouldn't, but there's a sense, one that develops fairly early in TFA and never really leaves, that she'd be quite content to just pilot the Falcon running freight for the rest of her life. Luke, by contrast, wants to be a hero from the very start. Heck, he wants it so bad that no one blinks when Yoda makes fun of him for it. Yoda could have never directed that speech at Rey, who spent almost the entirety of her life with her mind very much on where she was and what she was doing.

Actually this is a problem with most of the ST characters. None of our heroes have a particularly strong motive beyond 'defeat the bad guys because they are bad,' with Finn struggling to even manage that at times. Kylo actually does have a strong personal motive, he wants to claim what he believes is his legacy, and that's part of the reason why for all his faults he's far and away the best character in the ST.

[Peelee]

You can be the principle threat and not be a villain. Xykon is the threat, but Redcloak (and more recently the Fiend Trio) is the villain. Xykon supplies force, Redcloak supplies agency. This is actually a common dynamic. In OT Star Wars Darth Vader is the primary threat, but the Emperor is the villain.

Xykon provides plenty of agency though? And the IFCC don't seem to provide any?

Tarquin is the main villain in Star Wars, he holds Vader's leash. The Emperor is the main villain in ROTJ, for the same reason. Xykon, though, is the head of Team Evil. Redcloak is the advisor; he can provide options, he can set out what courses if action they have available, he may even get to choose it when Xykon feels like it, but at the end of the day big X is the ultimate authority. Redcloak has a plan to use Xykon for his own purposes. Great, Vader wanted to join up with Luke to overthrow the Emperor, but you yourself openly admit that doesn't make Vader the big bad. By your own logic, Xykon is the Emperor in this situation.

If the Gate situation resolves without dooming the world or destroying anyone in Team Evil, Redcloak would cease to matter, the IFCC would cease to matter, the Snarl would cease to matter, Xykon would not cease to matter. Because Xykon is the main villain. Everyone else is villain by circumstance, and that circumstance can be taken away.

[Zevox]

Actually this is a problem with most of the ST characters. None of our heroes have a particularly strong motive beyond 'defeat the bad guys because they are bad,' with Finn struggling to even manage that at times. Kylo actually does have a strong personal motive, he wants to claim what he believes is his legacy, and that's part of the reason why for all his faults he's far and away the best character in the ST.

Oh, I cannot agree about that. While you're not entirely wrong about that being an issue with the heroes to an extent, I will never consider Kylo remotely the best character in the sequel trilogy. As far as I'm concerned, he's the worst - an awful villain who serves only to weaken the films. The only criticism of the sequels that I have that comes up to par with him is how Luke's story and character were handled in TLJ.

If the Gate situation resolves without dooming the world or destroying anyone in Team Evil, Redcloak would cease to matter, the IFCC would cease to matter, the Snarl would cease to matter, Xykon would not cease to matter. Because Xykon is the main villain. Everyone else is villain by circumstance, and that circumstance can be taken away.

[Urge to nitpick overwhelms.] Well, the IFCC at least wouldn't cease to matter. They're a trio of presumably quite powerful, and definitely long-term scheming, fiends - if their current plan to destroy the forces of good fails, they'll just move on to another. They'll probably cease to matter to the Order of the Stick specifically, but they'd still be a threat to the world.

But yeah, Xykon in particular does stand out there, because he does have more going on. Roy is the main character of the story, and his quest, since well before the Gates plotline was introduced, is to destroy Xykon. No matter what else happens, Xykon is therefore central to the story.

[Theaitetos]

If the toy & action figure sales are any indication, then yes, very few people actually like the sequel characters. Neither Ma-Rey Sue nor the others sell at any decent rate – which is troublesome for Disney, because Merchandise is the biggest monetary factor in the franchise as a whole (before movie & theme park revenues even).

I don't see or buy the characters' motivations either. Why does Rey look for Luke in the first place, and why does she even want to be a Jedi? And I don't think Jar Jar Abrams even thought about the background or motivations of any of these characters; he's a horrible storyteller and just steals stuff from elsewhere.

Why doesn't Finn have a name? Even the original clonetroopers got themselves names because designations were just plain stupid during battle; so they called themselves short names, good for quick calls: Rex, Fives, Echo, Cody, … . And why does Phasma have a name? Argh! Breaking canon & realism to get what exactly? I'm willing to suspend my disbelief if I get a good story out of it, but doing something like that and leaving a gaping hole where a background should be? That just kicks you out of enjoying a "Star Wars" movie early in the movie.

The character "arcs" of everyone in these movies were totally broken.

Han Solo became a smuggler again – why? He developed from sleazy, charming pirate to reliable, charming Rebel general. He regressed and then became a useless wuzz in TFA. That's what you want to see your childhood hero become!

Although it was much worse for Luke. The hero who overcame temptations and so strongly believed in the goodness/light inside his dark father, that he brought the Sith Lord Vader back to the light side Jedi Anakin. That hero drew his lightsaber over his nephew's nightmare? He became a miserable loner? Even Mark Hamill publicly puked at this character development.

The new characters never really connected to me. I wouldn't have cared if any of them died, and tbh I even wished for Rose to die at the end of TLJ.

The Giant was right: I don't even care about the fate of the world, only about the protagonists. When Starkiller base destroyed those Republic planets, I didn't feel anything because the protagonists didn't feel anything. It felt very different when Alderaan was destroyed, because of how emotional Princess Leia was about it and how Obi-Wan was unsettled. Did anyone ever mention those planets again in an emotional way in RoS? Did anybody lose family there? Has anyone joined the Resistance after that out of a thirst for revenge?

Nobody in those movies cared about anything. And I don't care about anyone in these movies.

[Zevox]

If the toy & action figure sales are any indication, then yes, very few people actually like the sequel characters. Neither Ma-Rey Sue nor the others sell at any decent rate – which is troublesome for Disney, because Merchandise is the biggest monetary factor in the franchise as a whole (before movie & theme park revenues even).

I don't see or buy the characters' motivations either. Why does Rey look for Luke in the first place, and why does she even want to be a Jedi? And I don't think Jar Jar Abrams even thought about the background or motivations of any of these characters; he's a horrible storyteller and just steals stuff from elsewhere.

Why doesn't Finn have a name? Even the original clonetroopers got themselves names because designations were just plain stupid during battle; so they called themselves short names, good for quick calls: Rex, Fives, Echo, Cody, … . And why does Phasma have a name? Argh! Breaking canon & realism to get what exactly? I'm willing to suspend my disbelief if I get a good story out of it, but doing something like that and leaving a gaping hole where a background should be? That just kicks you out of enjoying a "Star Wars" movie early in the movie.

The character "arcs" of everyone in these movies were totally broken.

Han Solo became a smuggler again – why? He developed from sleazy, charming pirate to reliable, charming Rebel general. He regressed and then became a useless wuzz in TFA. That's what you want to see your childhood hero become!

Although it was much worse for Luke. The hero who overcame temptations and so strongly believed in the goodness/light inside his dark father, that he brought the Sith Lord Vader back to the light side Jedi Anakin. That hero drew his lightsaber over his nephew's nightmare? He became a miserable loner? Even Mark Hamill publicly puked at this character development.

The new characters never really connected to me. I wouldn't have cared if any of them died, and tbh I even wished for Rose to die at the end of TLJ.

The Giant was right: I don't even care about the fate of the world, only about the protagonists. When Starkiller base destroyed those Republic planets, I didn't feel anything because the protagonists didn't feel anything. It felt very different when Alderaan was destroyed, because of how emotional Princess Leia was about it and how Obi-Wan was unsettled. Did anyone ever mention those planets again in an emotional way in RoS? Did anybody lose family there? Has anyone joined the Resistance after that out of a thirst for revenge?

Nobody in those movies cared about anything. And I don't care about anyone in these movies.

I don't agree with all of that, but I'd say the gist of it applies to me. Over the course of two films, they failed to make me really care about the new protagonists, and made me actively hate the new main villain (and not in the way you're supposed to hate a villain, but in a "I don't want to see this character on-screen at all" way). That makes it much harder to care about the story itself. And it makes it that much easier to feel awful when the original cast, which the original movies did make me care about, are mistreated and killed off.

[Yora]

Have to disagree there - Rey is not a Mary Sue.

People always bicker over what a Mary Sue is. From here on we should simply call characters who get all powers for free, succeed at everything without risk of failure, and get constantly praised by the rest of the cast for actually doing nothing as Reys. Everyone knows the character that refers to and what's the problem with them.

[Saintheart]

Actually this is a problem with most of the ST characters. None of our heroes have a particularly strong motive beyond 'defeat the bad guys because they are bad,' with Finn struggling to even manage that at times. Kylo actually does have a strong personal motive, he wants to claim what he believes is his legacy, and that's part of the reason why for all his faults he's far and away the best character in the ST.

Leaving aside who's the best character across the whole ST, I'd say the best character of TFA is actually Finn. Reason for that being he's the only character who is proactive about events that happen in his vicinity, rather than purely reactive. It's Finn who has the first crisis of conscience when presented with something horrible to do, who refuses to fire on unarmed innocents. It's Finn who then decides and then carries out a half-baked plan to get Poe out and leave the First Order. It's Finn who sees Rey in trouble and at least intends to intervene, it's Finn who initiates them running like hell when the TIE fighters show up, it's Finn who wants to impress Rey and therefore comes up with an outright lie which is played for laughs (and it's the only time Harrison Ford's eyes seem to come to life in the whole film). When he goes to the Starkiller, it's to save Rey, because he cares about her. And so on. And his decisions come with consequences most of the time; when he picks up a lightsaber, he gets his tail end kicked all over the farm, first by our hero TR-8R, then by Kylo Ren (who goes so far not to just kick his tail end but just about surgically remove his whole spine with a lightsaber, an injury that he recovers from less than 24 hours later on TLJ ... sigh ...) Anyway: he actually makes a better protagonist when he's only a side character in his own film.

Rey strikes me as quite the opposite. Absent one or two very muted moments, she reacts to what happens around her. When she rescues BB-8, it's not out of some moral principle as such, it's a fleeting distaste for something unjust happening near her. It's not that she comes across as a particularly good person, she just occasionally feels guilty about stuff and acts to alleviate her guilt. The decision to not turn in BB-8 is probably meant to be some sort of first flickering of familial love or something, which would be more believable if it didn't happen one day after she first met him. If we'd had some sort of "Rey repairing BB-8 at home" scene, that might've helped. Or a similar slow moment of some kind. We have similar issues with her interactions with Han Solo, though Ford makes a manful attempt at creating the crotchety uncle persona for her to bounce off.

[Zevox]

People always bicker over what a Mary Sue is. From here on we should simply call characters who get all powers for free, succeed at everything without risk of failure, and get constantly praised by the rest of the cast for actually doing nothing as Reys. Everyone knows the character that refers to and what's the problem with them.

...except she doesn't do that. Hell, I outlined in the rest of the post you quoted how she, like pretty much everyone else in TLJ, failed at basically everything she attempted to do in that film, aside from helping the Resistance escape at the very end, which could easily have been accomplished without her anyway. And in TFA she gets captured by Kylo and spends half the film doing nothing because of that, which basically prevents her from contributing to the main plot meaningfully at all.

Also, "constantly praised by the rest of the cast?" Now, I've onlt watched TFA twice and TLJ once, so maybe I've forgotten, but I don't recall anything like that happening.

Like I said, her progression with her force powers is poorly handled and noticeably fast, I agree there. But on its own, that doesn't make her a Mary Sue, just a protagonist whose writers are too eager to take her from zero to badass ASAP.

[Bobb]

Now that the trilogy has concluded and we can definitively state none of the original cast knew or knew of Rey before interacting with her, its pretty bad.

Finn falls for her, hard after meeting her via her assaulting him and accusing him of theft.

Han uncharacteristically tries to get her to join his crew shortly after meeting her.

Leia prioritizes Rey over Chewie.

Chewie doesn't object to becoming the taxi driver for Rey when Han dies when, by rights the MF should be his.

Maz is all "here! Take Luke's lightsaber."

Kylo is desperate for her to join him from scene one.

[TheSummoner]

Adding to your list, she's shown to have skills and abilities abilities she would have no logical reason to possess and new skills/abilities manifest spontaneously as the plot demands. Her skills are also shown to outclass those of characters from the original trilogy who have had much longer to practice them.

[The Glyphstone]

Finn also falls hard for Rose in TLJ, then for Deserter Stormtrooper Girl in ROS, so maybe he's just easily swayed by pretty girls?

[Bobb]

Finn also falls hard for Rose in TLJ, then for Deserter Stormtrooper Girl in ROS, so maybe he's just easily swayed by pretty girls?

The what now? Did you see his reaction to Rose planting one on him?

He spends half his screen time in the trilogy shouting Rey's name and clearly prefers Rey to stormtrooper girl.

I guess we can use Rose as a counter argument for it being weird Finn would forgive Rey for assaulting him as Rose does worse to him with the shock prod.

Finn is just a forgiving guy at heart and there was nothing Rey could have done to him to set a lasting poor impression.

[The Glyphstone]

The what now? Did you see his reaction to Rose planting one on him?

He spends half his screen time in the trilogy shouting Rey's name and clearly prefers Rey to stormtrooper girl.

I guess we can use Rose as a counter argument for it being weird Finn would forgive Rey for assaulting him as Rose does worse to him with the shock prod.

Finn is just a forgiving guy at heart and there was nothing Rey could have done to him to set a lasting poor impression.

Okay, maybe I misremembered. The memory cells I devoted to TLJ only return [DATA CORRUPTED] errors on review.

[Ramza00]

Leaving aside who's the best character across the whole ST, I'd say the best character of TFA is actually Finn. Reason for that being he's the only character who is proactive about events that happen in his vicinity, rather than purely reactive. It's Finn who has the first crisis of conscience when presented with something horrible to do, who refuses to fire on unarmed innocents. It's Finn who then decides and then carries out a half-baked plan to get Poe out and leave the First Order. It's Finn who sees Rey in trouble and at least intends to intervene, it's Finn who initiates them running like hell when the TIE fighters show up, it's Finn who wants to impress Rey and therefore comes up with an outright lie which is played for laughs (and it's the only time Harrison Ford's eyes seem to come to life in the whole film). When he goes to the Starkiller, it's to save Rey, because he cares about her. And so on. And his decisions come with consequences most of the time; when he picks up a lightsaber, he gets his tail end kicked all over the farm, first by our hero TR-8R, then by Kylo Ren (who goes so far not to just kick his tail end but just about surgically remove his whole spine with a lightsaber, an injury that he recovers from less than 24 hours later on TLJ ... sigh ...) Anyway: he actually makes a better protagonist when he's only a side character in his own film.

Rey strikes me as quite the opposite. Absent one or two very muted moments, she reacts to what happens around her. When she rescues BB-8, it's not out of some moral principle as such, it's a fleeting distaste for something unjust happening near her. It's not that she comes across as a particularly good person, she just occasionally feels guilty about stuff and acts to alleviate her guilt. The decision to not turn in BB-8 is probably meant to be some sort of first flickering of familial love or something, which would be more believable if it didn't happen one day after she first met him. If we'd had some sort of "Rey repairing BB-8 at home" scene, that might've helped. Or a similar slow moment of some kind. We have similar issues with her interactions with Han Solo, though Ford makes a manful attempt at creating the crotchety uncle persona for her to bounce off.

Only the Sith deal with Absolutes. But let’s use prequel logic on this new trilogy. One of the things that make Sith as Sith and Jedi as Jedi is proactive as in agency vs reactive and responsive. Of course there are some exceptions to this, Qui Gon Jinn was a radical for he would stir the pot, make ripples, and step outside his lane to be an agent of change. This lead to both good and horrible things to Qui Gon Jinn and the Jedi.

I am glad Finn shows how agency can lead to forms of harmony and balance. Simultaneously Rey is a person who clings to things from time to time, only to later discard, disavow, and then seek new growth when she can not return home again. Rey is reactive but once moving she is using her own agency but sometimes she returns to clinging trying to create a false harmony for she wants to feel connected to something for she is dealing with her childhood wound and that trauma.

[Azuresun]

For reference, I first saw Star Wars when I was 16 and even then, the first film I watched with RotJ, so I really enjoyed the movies, but don't have a massive sentimental attachment to them. Saw it two days ago, and....I quite enjoyed it. Solid 7/10. Personally, I'd rate it as the best of the sequels, and considering what they had to work with at the start, it was quite an achievement to pull a coherent movie out without dedicating half of it to resetting TLJ. There wasn't anything revolutionary there, but it was giving me epic action and characters getting cool moments (in particular, Finn and Poe, who really got shortchanged in TLJ), and that's all I ever ask for from a Star Wars movie. That said, it made a lot more sense than it had to--the parts where a character just happens to acquire something they need to continue made sense in the story, and was usually foreshadowed.

Some thoughts on specific bits:

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--Palpatine might have been an emergency fix, but he worked. Even the few minutes of buildup he got at the start gave him more presence in the story than Snoke had. And I admit I got a tingle on hearing that line again about "powers some consider....unnatural". The prequels had some good bits, and it was cool to hear a callback to one of them.

--Ditto for Luke. I think the reason their reunion works is that Rey made very little impression on me because....well, Luke does an implausible amount of awesome stuff in the first trilogy, but it works because he also has moments where he has to depend on other characters like Han or Obi-Wan, or even Vader. Giving Rey a moment where she's defeated and would never have found a way out on her own did a lot to make her feel more human and relatable.

--I did get a chuckle out of Palpatine blowing himself up with his own UNLIMITED POWAH. Because it's totally the sort of thing that the guy we saw in the prequels would do.

--One thing that I think the sequels do better than either of the other trilogies is to really sell how emotions affect the Force, and how using it is about self-control. The prequels had a lot of talk about fear leading to the Dark Side, but it's never really expressed well in Anakin's story. Ren felt like someone who was legitimately getting power from rage, and Palpatine's doom is caused by being unable to let go of the ecstacy of cutting loose with the Dark Side--getting too high off his own supply.

--One bit that didn't sit well with me was how gung-ho everyone else was about C-3PO essentially sacrificing himself. It would have felt a lot better if he'd been the one to suggest the reboot.

One thing that I do find really odd about internet chatter about this film is that so many people seem unable to stop at just saying "I disliked it." They need to reach for proof that nobody really liked it or that it's "objectively" bad. Anything rather than acknowledge that other people like things they don't like and vice versa, and that's okay.

[Zevox]

Now that the trilogy has concluded and we can definitively state none of the original cast knew or knew of Rey before interacting with her, its pretty bad.

Finn falls for her, hard after meeting her via her assaulting him and accusing him of theft.

The male and female leads of a story being love interests is such a common thing that it's basically the default across almost all media. Not something I'm a fan of, since it's so oversaturated that I actually find stories without a romance subplot refreshing, but still, a very silly thing to use an example of extreme love being given to Rey.

Han uncharacteristically tries to get her to join his crew shortly after meeting her.

Han and Rey actually felt like they were developing a rapport though, and Han is a much kinder person after his development in the originals than he was at the start, so that makes sense to me.

Leia prioritizes Rey over Chewie.

I genuinely don't know what you're referencing on that one. Is it in Rise of Skywalker? Because that one I haven't seen and thus won't make any claims about.

Chewie doesn't object to becoming the taxi driver for Rey when Han dies when, by rights the MF should be his.

Chewie's spent decades of his life being Han's partner due to his life debt to him - what exactly do you expect he's going to do with Han dead, if not continue to help people who were friends with Han? That's kind of where he is in life at that point.

Maz is all "here! Take Luke's lightsaber."

Yeah, that was silly, no argument there. Don't know why the lightsaber was for some reason choosing a new wielder through the force as if it had a will of its own. Or why Maz had it at all.

Kylo is desperate for her to join him from scene one.

Uh, my recollection is that he just wanted to capture her and pull the star map out of her mind to locate Luke, and didn't much care about her specifically at first.

[Divayth Fyr]

I genuinely don't know what you're referencing on that one. Is it in Rise of Skywalker? Because that one I haven't seen and thus won't make any claims about.

Probably the scene where Leia embraces Rey, not Chewie in TFA when the crew returns to the base after Kylo murdered his dad.

[Theaitetos]

Palpatine might have been an emergency fix, but he worked.

He did?

Even the few minutes of buildup he got at the start gave him more presence in the story than Snoke had. And I admit I got a tingle on hearing that line again about "powers some consider....unnatural". The prequels had some good bits, and it was cool to hear a callback to one of them.

Ah, so in other words: Palpatine "worked", because you knew him from the other 2 trilogies. He wouldn't have "worked" without it. And that is actually very bad for such a trilogy, because a movie or a movie group needs to be self-enclosed, i.e. it all needs to make good sense without any additional requirements.

See, it's fine if there is fanservice and people reminisce about nicely built-in tributes to past things ("I have a bad feeling about this…") & canon, but how would you feel if Palpatine had only ever existed in a Star Wars book series, that you would have needed to read before seeing the sequel trilogy? What if the final villain of the sequel trilogy was only introduced in a comic book series? Everyone right at the beginning of the movie – except those comic book readers – would have gone "Who is Paul Baudin?" and the moviegoer wouldn't know what all the fuzz is about.

The prequel trilogy was good movie stuff, not great, but good, and even they managed to close everything inside them. They make perfect sense, without any pre-knowledge, in and of themselves. You still understand Revenge of the Sith perfectly fine, even if you've never seen the animated Clone Wars series. But if you had seen the series, you would have had additional content to enjoy during the movie.

So no, I strongly disagree with "Palpatine working" in this trilogy. And once you look at the entire 9 movies, it gets even worse, because by having Palpatine survive, you destroy the entire heroic redemption arc of Anakin Skywalker: "You were the Chosen One! The ancient Prophecy said you would destroy the Sith, not join them! You were supposed to bring Balance to the Force, not leave it in Darkness!" –Obi-Wan Kenobi, on Mustafar.

All of that is destroyed, the entire setup of the prequel trilogy, and Anakin killing Palpatine in the original trilogy. Luke's courageous suffering at Palpatine's hands for naught, but a delay in the Emperor's busy schedule.

We're lucky George Lucas is still alive, because if that had happened after his death, many a Star Wars fan would rightfully accuse Disney of "taking a &%?! on George Lucas' grave."

Ditto for Luke. I think the reason their reunion works is that Rey made very little impression on me because....well, Luke does an implausible amount of awesome stuff in the first trilogy

He lands one lucky shot at the end of the first movie. In the second movie, he explores the innards of a Tauntaun on Hoth, goes jogging on Dagobah, and comes back empty-handed against Vader. And the third movie finally sees him fight obesity on Tattooine and play a round of GTA on Endor, before doing cosplay as a lightning rod.

Granted, this is a very comedic summary of his actions, but if you search your feelings, you know it to be true that Luke didn't actually do "an implausible amount of awesome stuff." In fact, it's quite to the contrary. Luke doesn't just appear human, he is human, very limited in his power at first: Heck, there's nothing in the first movie that I couldn't have done! I'm being serious, from beginning to end Luke doesn't do any supernatural thing – destroying the Death Star with a perfect shot was the most difficult thing to do, and considering how much X-Wing vs. Tie-Fighter I've played in my life…

Luke doesn't need to do supernatural acts to be the hero, but he is optimistic, encouraging others to do good, and works hard to get where he is at in the final movie; there'd be no group of heroes without him, as he made Obi-Wan came back out of hiding, he convinced Han with promises of gold for risking his life to save Leia, he even takes the fear of X-Wing pilots by telling them such a shot is even manageable for a poor farm-hand like him with some training shooting rats. No, Luke is a little more competent than at the beginning (which is not that hard), and even Elan managed to destroy the Death Star Snarl Gate and blow up Tarkin & Vader's Xykon & Redcloak's evil plan. After tragedy at the beginning (his family murdered), Luke set out on a classical, heroic arc without having to beat up big infantry soldiers, outclass military-trained fighter pilots in dogfights, repair hyperdrives on his first day aboard the Millennium Falcon, learn force power mind control on the fly, or defeat Sith Lords at lightsaber fighting (just in the first movie!).

One thing that I do find really odd about internet chatter about this film is that so many people seem unable to stop at just saying "I disliked it." They need to reach for proof that nobody really liked it or that it's "objectively" bad. Anything rather than acknowledge that other people like things they don't like and vice versa, and that's okay.

There's method to this madness: If Star Wars crashes and burns fast, then Disney might reconsider and actually make good Star Wars movies in the future. But if it just smolders to bits at a slow pace, then the entire franchise would slowly fizzle away with each new bad Star Wars movie that Disney makes.

Hollywood has increasingly become infamous in the past 20 years for destroying established franchises to make a quick buck, while neglecting to care for them, or develop any new original content. Star Trek died – and Jar Jar Abrams had a prominent role in that murder story as well – and maybe fans don't want to see Star Wars end the same way? Can't blame the angry fans for seeing the obvious parallels here.

We should also acknowledge that there are "force-sensitive" people in our world. These people can't lift fighter-jets out of swamps, but they can clearly see where a specific path is leading to ("the dark side"). You might like the movie, sure, no problem, but some of these people are able to see more than you and me when it comes to movies. They're able to realize & put into words what you and I only subconsciously experience.

A personal example: I loved the Avatar – Legend of Aang tv series. And I also loved the sequel Avatar Korra. At first I didn't understand the heavy criticism around Korra either, but after more than a year something dawned on me: I've never felt the urge to rewatch the Korra series, not even once. I've watched the original Avatar series about… well, too often… but not Korra. And then I watched a few Korra reviews on Youtube: The review made me realize how much bad stuff was in there, the holes in the plot, the cringy character development, the bad storytelling, … . So these people realized consciously all the problems with the series that I never consciously understood – but my brain knew subconsciously that Korra wasn't worth rewatching while Aang was worth rewatching.

Long story short: Korra felt good right after watching it, no problem. But it did, in fact, kill the franchise, because it wasn't that good after all. And this is why it's super important to listen to some of these smart reviewers out there, who are able to give you clear & concise criticism of your movies. You'd better listen to them if you want your franchise to have a long & happy future.

[Azuresun]

There's method to this madness: If Star Wars crashes and burns fast, then Disney might reconsider and actually make good Star Wars movies in the future. But if it just smolders to bits at a slow pace, then the entire franchise would slowly fizzle away with each new bad Star Wars movie that Disney makes.

Hollywood has increasingly become infamous in the past 20 years for destroying established franchises to make a quick buck, while neglecting to care for them, or develop any new original content. Star Trek died – and Jar Jar Abrams had a prominent role in that murder story as well – and maybe fans don't want to see Star Wars end the same way? Can't blame the angry fans for seeing the obvious parallels here.

We should also acknowledge that there are "force-sensitive" people in our world. These people can't lift fighter-jets out of swamps, but they can clearly see where a specific path is leading to ("the dark side"). You might like the movie, sure, no problem, but some of these people are able to see more than you and me when it comes to movies. They're able to realize & put into words what you and I only subconsciously experience.

Sweet criminy.....you're putting a lot of effort into trying to persuade someone you've never met that they didn't actually enjoy themselves, and should instead be feeling disappointed and annoyed, because that's the Correct way to feel. Of course, I couldn't possibly have really enjoyed the movie, I'm just a dupe of The Man. I guess I'm having inferior fun.

Again: It's okay to say "I didn't like the movie." It's valid. But you're not smarter than me because you dislike it. You're not more insightful. You're not a higher order of moviegoer for being more cynical. You have a different opinion, which is just as valuable as mine, but no more. This gatekeeping nonsense where the "true fans" are the arbiters of taste and what's really Star Wars is just....comical.

Oh, and Star Trek's doing fine right now. Maybe not doing things that are to your taste (which is fine, your individual opinion on Discovery and Picard is entirely valid, so long as it's not presented as objective truth), but the franchise is very much un-murdered.

[Theaitetos]

Sweet criminy.....you're putting a lot of effort into trying to persuade someone you've never met that they didn't actually enjoy themselves, and should instead be feeling disappointed and annoyed, because that's the Correct way to feel. Of course, I couldn't possibly have really enjoyed the movie, I'm just a dupe of The Man. I guess I'm having inferior fun.

And you're putting up a lot of straw-men just because… you're out of a valid reply?

I specifically compared the Star Wars sequel trilogy to Legend of Korra. Korra was a good series imo, but I did not realize after watching it that all its problems would have tragic consequences: The Avatar franchise is dead – and this despite it surviving an abysmal movie without serious damage.

Again: It's okay to say "I didn't like the movie." It's valid. But you're not smarter than me because you dislike it. You're not more insightful.

There are a lot of people smarter than you. And there are a lot of people more insightful than you. Or me. It's one of those things you realize about life: Everyone is pretty dumb & blind in almost all areas outside their expertise. And there are some real smart people out there in their areas of expertise. Accepting that is very healthy. Humility is a virtue after all.

You're not a higher order of moviegoer for being more cynical. You have a different opinion, which is just as valuable as mine, but no more. This gatekeeping nonsense where the "true fans" are the arbiters of taste and what's really Star Wars is just....comical.

"True fans"? Cynical? Are you still talking to me? You should really use quote tags when you suddenly talk to someone else or about something else than the first quote.

Oh, and Star Trek's doing fine right now. Maybe not doing things that are to your taste (which is fine, your individual opinion on Discovery and Picard is entirely valid, so long as it's not presented as objective truth), but the franchise is very much un-murdered.

The fact that it's shedding money, its toys not selling, cable & TV contractors pulling out, the directors being fired in season 2, staff quitting over abuse, … AND rushing to create a completely new, previously unplanned series with an 80-year-old actor out of desperation to acquiesce the fans, … AND getting their corporate behinds sued because they stole absolutely everything in original content from Anas Abdin's science-fiction game?

If there were a real-life definition of "crash & burn", it is that one – and there I thought I had seen a real "crash & burn" with the Enterprise D on Veridian III.

The only reason so many Star Trek fans aren't screaming at the top of their lungs? They're glad that they have The Orville to keep Gene Roddenberry's dream alive!

As I said, you can like these things as much as I like The Legend of Korra. But I choose not to live in denial about the degradation of the franchises any longer: These franchises don't pull; and they don't inspire young people to be enthusiastic about Star Wars (or Star Trek) anymore – and we're talking about a young generation that manages to get enthusiastic about Fortnite…

----

Edit: Here's a cool video from the "Bad Lip Reading Channel": Yoda: "My Stick!". Funny as always!

[Bobb]

Sweet criminy.....you're putting a lot of effort into trying to persuade someone you've never met that they didn't actually enjoy themselves, and should instead be feeling disappointed and annoyed, because that's the Correct way to feel. Of course, I couldn't possibly have really enjoyed the movie, I'm just a dupe of The Man. I guess I'm having inferior fun.

Again: It's okay to say "I didn't like the movie." It's valid. But you're not smarter than me because you dislike it. You're not more insightful. You're not a higher order of moviegoer for being more cynical. You have a different opinion, which is just as valuable as mine, but no more. This gatekeeping nonsense where the "true fans" are the arbiters of taste and what's really Star Wars is just....comical.

Oh, and Star Trek's doing fine right now. Maybe not doing things that are to your taste (which is fine, your individual opinion on Discovery and Picard is entirely valid, so long as it's not presented as objective truth), but the franchise is very much un-murdered.

I'm gonna need you to take that chip waaaaaay the heck off your shoulder, gentleperson.




And yes, the Hug between General Leia and (IIRC) some kid she's never seen before as she walks past Chewie was my reference.

[ImperiousLeader]

The fact that it's shedding money, its toys not selling, cable & TV contractors pulling out, the directors being fired in season 2, staff quitting over abuse, … AND rushing to create a completely new, previously unplanned series with an 80-year-old actor out of desperation to acquiesce the fans, … AND getting their corporate behinds sued because they stole absolutely everything in original content from Anas Abdin's science-fiction game?

Discovery is into its third season, Picard on the way, and Lower Decks has been contracted for 2 seasons, it's already been renewed, two films in preproduction ...

I'd call Star Trek in a pretty healthy spot. Or, put it this way, it's in a better spot than before Star Trek 2009 came out.