STAR WARS IX: THE RISE OF MACLUNKEY! 12/20/19

[O.Supreme]

[Benjamin Haines]

[lhb412]

^ It also allows a space for extremists to congregate online in certain mainstream spaces. I'm sure we've all noticed how often these sorts of events attract racists, misogynists, and various other scumbags who then glom onto a particular movement even though they really couldn't give a flying flip about Star Wars or comic books or whatever.

In short, by presenting their views as allied with whatever nerd freakout is going on at the time they can expose more people to their ideas. Pathways to radicalization and whatnot.

[mr.negativity]

[Gwangi]

In all honesty, I can’t help to being very apprehensive about this movie. Whatever one thought of “The Last Jedi”, it can’t be denied that it was very divisive among the fans, and truth be told, it was divisive within myself. There were things that I really liked about the movie (Rey’s surprise linage), but there were scenes that I really could have done without (Canto Bight!). And, Carrie Fisher’s death just put a damper in a lot of things. We will see how they will handle her scenes and hope that this film will be a satisfying thumbs up (J.J., this is the end of this saga, so please, no more head scratching twists, like I saw in “Han Solo”).

[Dr Kain]

Naturally, the internet is going on about how negative some of the reviews are towards this film, but my thing is, is anyone surprised? People are going into this movie already with the mindset to hate the film just because they didn't like the last one. As such, how many of these negative reviews can we say are truly unbiased?

I recently rewatched TLJ for the first time since theaters and found everything I loved about it then to be non-existent now. I still don't think it does anything past films didn't do, but it is pretty boring as nothing is accomplished at all. That and I can't take The First Order seriously as they are nothing but a bunch of man-children. How were they able to reconquer the galaxy after the Rebels won it from the Empire? HOW?!

Nevertheless, I'm going into RotS with an open mind as I do with every Star Wars film.

[lhb412]

I feel that people are going to really come apart about this movie. I feel like posting a gif of Hannibal Chow saying he'll ride this s***storm out in his private bunker. Anyone have that handy?

[O.Supreme]

Kind of feeling the same way. Kind of sad. I had previously read almost 100 EU novels. There are a lot of things about some of the new films I don't like, but I almost do want to go into hiding for the next few weeks. Not to avoid spoilers, but to avoid the inevitable coming social media disaster from all sides.

[Dai]

If you thought Avengers: Endgame was locked in as the most epic movie of 2019, hold onto your butts because here comes a last-minute contender. The Rise of Skywalker is an often insanely gorgeous feast for the eyes and ears, shows the characters we've watched for two movies finally coming into their own as the heart of this trilogy, and mostly manages the Herculean task of being a satisfying conclusion to both the sequels and the Skywalker saga as a whole. The sequels finally break free from borrowing endless original trilogy plot points and beats to provide a climax that feels like something new, while still paying homage to everything that came before.

That said, it's not flawlessly executed. It's painfully obvious that they didn't have enough Carrie Fisher footage for the role she needed to play in this story. They do their best with what they had, but a key scene in the middle really needed something more, and suffers for the lack of it, making an important twist unconvincing. Another problem is that this movie's new characters feel superfluous; I'm struggling to remember them doing anything significant. Then there's the overuse of strobe lighting in the climax, which gets exhausting afer a while.

The final problem is more personal preference, and will depend on how you felt about The Last Jedi.


With those complaints out the way, there's a lot to like here. If you're a C-3PO fan, this is the funniest and most present he's been since Empire. Rey has finally matured into a compelling protagonist, and having this trilogy's heroes all go on an adventure together in the first half is great fun. The variety of action and the sheer scale of certain scenes are impressive (most impressive). I'd say this is a superior movie to The Force Awakens, thanks to it carving out its own identity and being a satisfying capstone to the series. I can't emphasise the importance of that last point enough. We saw with Game of Thrones just how much damage a weak conclusion can do to an overall work, regardless of its quality up to that point, and JJ really sticks the landing here.

[sentaison]

I'm probably going to try and see it this weekend with visiting family. But I just can't get excited about it the way I was before seeing TLJ. That movie almost killed my love for Star Wars. Fortunately the franchise had other offerings like Star Wars:Rebels to keep the flame alive. Now I have been watching The Mandalorian on Disney + and that's been a fantastic foray into the Star Wars universe. So I still have my love for Star Wars, but I have doubts on whether or not I'll ever watch Rise of Skywalker more than once.

[lhb412]

The Last Jedi is the only Star Wars movie made in my lifetime that I thought was legitimately great, and I fear it may not get any company any time soon.

[mr.negativity]

[Dr Kain]

I'll be doing a video review tomorrow, but Rise of Skywalker is the movie equivalent of Game of Thrones Season 8. A rushed mess with character plots that were left incomplete, a surprise main villain that came out of the blue, and character shields galore. I think I liked The Last Jedi better.

[Dr Kain]

[Dr Kain]

[Gwangi]

While I do agree with the criticisms of this film, I thought that it had just enough to push it into a thumbs up territory for me. The trilogy as a whole was very uneven, and I basically agree with what Dai stated that it was a result of two directors going on different narratives.

This should not be counted as a spoiler, as I thought it was fitting that Carrie Fisher received top billing in this film. Harrison Ford got it in "The Force Awakens" and Mark Hamill in "The Last Jedi".

Warts and all, using Leonard Maltin's movie guide score, I am giving "The Rise of Skywalker" *** stars.

[Dr Kain]

My problem is that it felt like 2 movies crammed into one so a lot of characters got pushed to the way side while new ones were introduced. Finn has got to be without a doubt the most horribly treated character of the franchise. JJ was so far up Rey's ass that he didn't even bother with giving Finn a conclusion, which is bs as Finn was the one character that had the most potential to stand out given he was a ST that grew a conscious. So much could have been done with that, but nope, we gotta give the majority of the screen time to Mary Sue.

Then we have Hux, who was Phasma 2.0.

Oh, and

EDIT: Oh my god, this is so spot on, but I did not know about the Fortnight crossover. That is absolute bullshit!

[superhedorahsaiyan]

[O.Supreme]

I think a bunch of older posts must have been deleted. I cant even find a thread discussing TFA. There are some comments in the Star Wars general thread, but one would think the film would have had its own thread. Oh well. I just wanted to quote something I stated back when TFA came out.

[lhb412]

So... Did we find out about Maclunkey?

[Dr Kain]

[mr.negativity]

[mr.negativity]

[O.Supreme]

Nice thank you Mr.N. I guess my search skills need improvement or my computer does. I couldn't find the episode VII thread anywhere using the forums advance search feature. And I turned out to be half right about Snoke, he definitely wasn't Plagueis . Too bad he turned out to be a nobody.

[mr.negativity]