The Rise of Skywalker General Star Wars Episode IX News/Speculation Thread - Part 1

Thing is, TLJ was the most critically acclaimed of the three, and also featured some fine acting. Most of all RJ tried to inject some freshness into the franchise, by hinting that the Resistance were not so whiter than white by buying their weapons from the same dealers as the FO, and emphasising Kylo as a broken antihero rather than an out and out villain.
I would have liked to see these shades of grey elements continued but Abrams and Terrio instead regressed everything back to the black/white morality of ANH, which these days is dated.
Whatever people think of TLJ in future, TROS will always be the film where the heroes were wiped out and the villain's granddaughter stole their name. And choosing to show Luke and Leia proudly smiling upon her like as one disgruntled twitter reviewer said Mary and Joseph of Alabama, doesn't do either of those characters any favours.
 


I love that samurai inspired stormtroopers armor.
 
Thing is, TLJ was the most critically acclaimed of the three, and also featured some fine acting. Most of all RJ tried to inject some freshness into the franchise, by hinting that the Resistance were not so whiter than white by buying their weapons from the same dealers as the FO, and emphasising Kylo as a broken antihero rather than an out and out villain.
I would have liked to see these shades of grey elements continued but Abrams and Terrio instead regressed everything back to the black/white morality of ANH, which these days is dated.
Whatever people think of TLJ in future, TROS will always be the film where the heroes were wiped out and the villain's granddaughter stole their name. And choosing to show Luke and Leia proudly smiling upon her like as one disgruntled twitter reviewer said Mary and Joseph of Alabama, doesn't do either of those characters any favours.
That's not fresh. It was done in Rogue One in the depiction of the rebellion and how they were depicted as fearful and killers of people, even those who were trying to help them. The compromising thing was also on display in The Clone Wars. And I think maybe, to me, in the prequels.

But buying weapons from the same people as the first order is no more grey than anyone buying weapons from anyone is.

I'd take that over Kylo being the mainline Skywalker.
 
That's not fresh. It was done in Rogue One in the depiction of the rebellion and how they were depicted as fearful and killers of people, even those who were trying to help them. The compromising thing was also on display in The Clone Wars. And I think maybe, to me, in the prequels.

But buying weapons from the same people as the first order is no more grey than anyone buying weapons from anyone is.

I'd take that over Kylo being the mainline Skywalker.
Well, he isn't, is he?
Mary Rey Sue is.
 
Thing is, TLJ was the most critically acclaimed of the three, and also featured some fine acting. Most of all RJ tried to inject some freshness into the franchise, by hinting that the Resistance were not so whiter than white by buying their weapons from the same dealers as the FO, and emphasising Kylo as a broken antihero rather than an out and out villain.
I would have liked to see these shades of grey elements continued but Abrams and Terrio instead regressed everything back to the black/white morality of ANH, which these days is dated.
Whatever people think of TLJ in future, TROS will always be the film where the heroes were wiped out and the villain's granddaughter stole their name. And choosing to show Luke and Leia proudly smiling upon her like as one disgruntled twitter reviewer said Mary and Joseph of Alabama, doesn't do either of those characters any favours.

Tbh, I think all the Star Wars trilogies follow a somewhat similar trajectory. Things start more black and white in the first chapter, they get more muddy and grey in the middle, and then in the third film it tends to boil back down to one last big good vs. evil clash. Even with Episode III being a tragedy, by the time we get to Anakin vs Obi-Wan, it is still 100% clear that Anakin is too far gone and we should not be rooting for him. It's uncomfortable to see friends fighting, but there is no ambiguity about who is on the light side and who is on the dark side.

And for as much as RJ took a deconstructionist approach to TLJ, I still think a lot of it was echoing some of the deconstructions of the prequels. And that's fine by the way, I like that-- helps make the prequels resonate more in the saga. The idea that the Jedi may not have been all good...I mean, that's the prequels in a nutshell. Or the whole thing about the Resistance and FO buying their weapons from the same dealers....uh, hello Grand Army of The Republic? Did we not get an entire movie about the Republic getting their army in a very shady way, and the good guys being led into war by an evil politician playing both sides? We got the Banking Clan and Trade Federation in the prequels too. War profiteering and the moral grey of war isn't some unprecedented, groundbreaking sort of idea to include in Star Wars if one has actually watched the prequels.

Even TLJ pulls back from those ideas, as by the end Finn is still fully committed to the Resistance despite DJ's attempts to seduce him to the moral grey area. Rian Johnson understood that at the end of the day, Star Wars still has a very earnest, cheesy streak in it and is ultimately for kids (or the kid inside you). Otherwise he would not have included the uber-sappy, "Not fighting what we hate...saving what we love", line in the third act. Which I also kind of find to be one of the lines in the third act that rebuts "let the past die", along with "no one's ever really gone" and "I will not be the last Jedi". So even TLJ is in dialogue with itself about these more subversive ideas, countering it with more classical Star Wars wisdom in the end. That's why it annoyed me that so many people genuinely believe that he literally just wanted to take a dump on Star Wars with that movie.

Damn, I do like TLJ though. It works so good thematically-- though I have to admit on subsequent viewings, the slow space chase as the main plot thrust can feel a bit tedious and I think it's clear now that Finn was done dirty through this entire trilogy.
 
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I was watching clips of this on YouTube and the scene when he is flying towards her and a much more awesome version, imo, occurred to me. Kylo is flying straight at her. She's just standing and facing the oncoming tie. He opens fire and the shots won't touch her. He gets within 50 feet of her and she raises her hand and the tie just stops like it hits a wall. Crumples like a beer can. Kylo goes flying through the windshield and she just stops him right in front of her. Face to face, and stares at him like she wants to crush him. Pure rage boiling off her. Then she hears Finn screaming about Chewie and she force throws Kylo away and begins to pull on Chewie's prison transport. Scene proceeds.
 
John Boyega: 'I’m the only cast member whose experience of Star Wars was based on their race'
“It’s so difficult to manoeuvre,” he says, exhaling deeply, visibly calibrating the level of professional diplomacy to display. “You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything. [But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.” He is talking about himself here – about the character of Finn, the former Stormtrooper who wielded a lightsaber in the first film before being somewhat nudged to the periphery. But he is also talking about other people of colour in the cast – Naomi Ackie and Kelly Marie Tran and even Oscar Isaac (“a brother from Guatemala”) – who he feels suffered the same treatment; he is acknowledging that some people will say he’s “crazy” or “making it up”, but the reordered character hierarchy of The Last Jedi was particularly hard to take.

“Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver,” he says. “You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know **** all. So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience…’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”

He is on a breathless roll now, breaking his long corporate omerta to touch on the unthinking, systemic mistreatment of black characters in blockbusters (“They’re always scared. They’re always fricking sweating”) and what he sees as the relative salvage job that returnee director JJ Abrams performed on The Rise Of Skywalker (“Everybody needs to leave my boy alone. He wasn’t even supposed to come back and try to save your ****”). Even though he also acknowledges that it was an “amazing opportunity” and a “stepping stone” that has precipitated so much good in his life and career, he is palpably exhilarated to be finally saying all this..

I disagree that they knew what to do with Rey or Kylo either; but I agree with a lot of what else he said. I pointed this out since Clarke was cast in Solo and especially after TLJ, Star Wars films aren't that diverse. I remember a certain Star Wars fanatic on here arguing to hell and back that SW is actually diverse after Clarke was cast, but I really don't see it at all.
Most of the leads are white. And then all the lead/primary women roles are pretty, fair skinned white brunettes. I give a pass to the older films for that and then for Leia and Padme's casting obviously. But still. Sure there are POCs in supporting roles but they really don't really get nearly as much to do or they were pushed to the side heavy like Boyega is saying. And I still think what they did with Lupita Nyongo and Gwendolyn Christie was weird. Also I'm still baffled that they had Oscar freaking Issac

Still love Star Wars, not the Disney era films, but I still love it. And I hope if they really want to commit to diversity that they do a better job

On another note, Boyega better tread light if he wants to keep his career. I know he said that during his protest speech that he might not have a career. I thought that was kinda silly but I don't think that's the case here. Hollywood doesn't wanna work with someone so undiplomatically outspoken about such a large franchise. Race aside. Or at least if you're gonna do it, you're gonna need to have the immense amount of talent to back it up. We saw the same thing happen with Katherine Heigl, Hugo Weaving, Shia LaBeouf for a time
 
I recall Boyega complaining about the marketing years ago, so it's not actually the first time for him to bring up that point.

It goes back to the larger point I and others have made about baiting and switching and zig zagging throughout the making of this 'story' across the three films and lack of setups and lack of payoffs (or just got bad ones). What they did w/ Finn early on was in hindsight a small warning of what was to come.

Finn had the second most amount of screen in the aggregate in these new movies...

oRD4zU6.png


...but it wasn't as important screen time as Driver (Kylo Ren) and Ridley (Rey) received.

If I ended up being the guy who just goes around yelling 'REEEEEYYYY' a lot with no payoff to that, I'd be annoyed as well. The correct thing to do with that is have a payoff to all that 'REEYY' yelling or else delete it from the scripts in the first place.
 
I think it's a bit dumb that he complained about Finn's character in TLJ when he had so much screentime and killed his abuser (Phasma). And then defends JJ? Wtf. I guess KMT can go eff herself right?
 
It's kind of odd to see him defend Abrams so vehemently when he did him no favors in TROS. Say what you will about Finn's role in TLJ, but at least Johnson gave him an arc.
 
On another note, Boyega better tread light if he wants to keep his career. I know he said that during his protest speech that he might not have a career. I thought that was kinda silly but I don't think that's the case here. Hollywood doesn't wanna work with someone so undiplomatically outspoken about such a large franchise. Race aside. Or at least if you're gonna do it, you're gonna need to have the immense amount of talent to back it up. We saw the same thing happen with Katherine Heigl, Hugo Weaving, Shia LaBeouf for a time

I don't think he's crossed the line as of yet, but if he keeps it up I could see him going too far.

I definitely think Finn got shortchanged, although why that is is less certain. I would imagine he doesn't blame Abrams because Abrams set him up as a lead and a romantic interest and The Last Jedi made it about Luke and Kylo. Rise of Skywalker was following The Last Jedi's lead in giving Kylo his redemption, but more still could have been done with Finn in that movie. Maybe the rush job on the film was part of it.

Rose Tico's exclusion I don't look at the same way because I don't think she was a good character or in a good movie. There are others who feel differently, and I know there are those who would have complained regardless because of her race, but if a character isn't well received they tend to go away. Finn's biggest offense was not being a Skywalker.
 
It's kind of odd to see him defend Abrams so vehemently when he did him no favors in TROS. Say what you will about Finn's role in TLJ, but at least Johnson gave him an arc.

I have my issues with the Finn subplot in TLJ, but Johnson at least attempted to give him a motivation beyond shouting "REYYYYYY!!!!" over and over again.

JJ had not one, but two chances to do something interesting with the character.
 
John Boyega: 'I’m the only cast member whose experience of Star Wars was based on their race'


I disagree that they knew what to do with Rey or Kylo either; but I agree with a lot of what else he said.

They knew what to do with Kylo and Rey, it just changed movie to movie.

I admire the balls of Boyega. He's largely right. The ST is going to age horribly in regards to diversity. Backing up JJ and Tran at the same time is nearly impossible, so it make me wonder who made the call that Rose got benched in Episode 9.
 
Same issue they had with Han Solo in the original trilogy, nothing left to do in the third movie. Finn's big sacrifice moment in The Last Jedi should have led to his death ala Solo's sacrifice at the end of Empire which ultimately should have led to his death as well.
 
As an African American man, I'll be honest that, I was looking forward to the potential his character held prior to me seeing TFA.

And , if i'm being honest, I was disappointed with what they ended up doing with his character in TFA, and more so as the other films went on.

His character, while having alot of potential moving forward, ultimately didn't really go anywhere, and they did give Tran the shaft after the backlash to TLJ.

So in that sense, yeah, they messed up Finn and Rose Imo. They didn't know what to do with them.

As far as it being because the characters were minorities , I can't go that far based on what I know.

It was pretty clear to me that the main three characters of the Saga established in TFA were Rey, Finn, and Kylo.

In a narrative sense, the rest of the films should have focused on the dynamics between those three characters and Rey being caught between Finn and Kylo.

However, the other films moved away from that dynamic and instead it became Reylo, with Finn, pushed off to a new character, and then that new character being sidelined all together.

As far as JB's career, I actually don't think its in as big a risk as others do.

The last thing Hollywood execs in 2020 want to do is be perceived as trying to hurt Boyega's career because he spoke out on how he felt the minority characters were treated.

That in itself would cause a backlash against them, and could led to calls for boycotts and put the execs in further awkward positions. Boyega would also likely not keep silent about that either.

Bautista said much worse about Disney during the Gunn situation, and nothing happened , so I doubt JB is in any real trouble.

So, they'll probably just stay silent, and let him pop off, but maybe Disney and Lucasfilm will try to talk to him behind the scenes and smooth things out that way.
 
John is not wrong but I do still love what Johnson was doing as whole maybe if George didn't damage the Jedi Order in the prequels no one would have to come along and point out what extremists they actually were and how the teachings are hot garbage as laid out in the prequels. Lucky the Sith we're around to make the Jedi look good.
 
John Boyega: 'I’m the only cast member whose experience of Star Wars was based on their race'


I disagree that they knew what to do with Rey or Kylo either; but I agree with a lot of what else he said. I pointed this out since Clarke was cast in Solo and especially after TLJ, Star Wars films aren't that diverse. I remember a certain Star Wars fanatic on here arguing to hell and back that SW is actually diverse after Clarke was cast, but I really don't see it at all.
Most of the leads are white. And then all the lead/primary women roles are pretty, fair skinned white brunettes. I give a pass to the older films for that and then for Leia and Padme's casting obviously. But still. Sure there are POCs in supporting roles but they really don't really get nearly as much to do or they were pushed to the side heavy like Boyega is saying. And I still think what they did with Lupita Nyongo and Gwendolyn Christie was weird. Also I'm still baffled that they had Oscar freaking Issac

Still love Star Wars, not the Disney era films, but I still love it. And I hope if they really want to commit to diversity that they do a better job

On another note, Boyega better tread light if he wants to keep his career. I know he said that during his protest speech that he might not have a career. I thought that was kinda silly but I don't think that's the case here. Hollywood doesn't wanna work with someone so undiplomatically outspoken about such a large franchise. Race aside. Or at least if you're gonna do it, you're gonna need to have the immense amount of talent to back it up. We saw the same thing happen with Katherine Heigl, Hugo Weaving, Shia LaBeouf for a time

I mean...why is his beef with Disney? What about the writers and directors? Hello, JJ Abrams, Rian Johnson...just saying. You know the guys who wrote the movies...
 
John is not wrong but I do still love what Johnson was doing as whole maybe if George didn't damage the Jedi Order in the prequels no one would have to come along and point out what extremists they actually were and how the teachings are hot garbage as laid out in the prequels. Lucky the Sith we're around to make the Jedi look good.

I think he's wrong blaming it all on Disney. What about Rian Johnson? What about JJ Abrams? Chris Terrio?
 
As an African American man, I'll be honest that, I was looking forward to the potential his character held prior to me seeing TFA.

And , if i'm being honest, I was disappointed with what they ended up doing with his character in TFA, and more so as the other films went on.

His character, while having alot of potential moving forward, ultimately didn't really go anywhere, and they did give Tran the shaft after the backlash to TLJ.

So in that sense, yeah, they messed up Finn and Rose Imo. They didn't know what to do with them.

As far as it being because the characters were minorities , I can't go that far based on what I know.

It was pretty clear to me that the main three characters of the Saga established in TFA were Rey, Finn, and Kylo.

In a narrative sense, the rest of the films should have focused on the dynamics between those three characters and Rey being caught between Finn and Kylo.

However, the other films moved away from that dynamic and instead it became Reylo, with Finn, pushed off to a new character, and then that new character being sidelined all together.

As far as JB's career, I actually don't think its in as big a risk as others do.

The last thing Hollywood execs in 2020 want to do is be perceived as trying to hurt Boyega's career because he spoke out on how he felt the minority characters were treated.

That in itself would cause a backlash against them, and could led to calls for boycotts and put the execs in further awkward positions. Boyega would also likely not keep silent about that either.

Bautista said much worse about Disney during the Gunn situation, and nothing happened , so I doubt JB is in any real trouble.

So, they'll probably just stay silent, and let him pop off, but maybe Disney and Lucasfilm will try to talk to him behind the scenes and smooth things out that way.

What happened with Rose is just as much Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams' fault.
 
I think the thing is, characters can get botched and sidelined in these types of movies all the time, regardless of race. Look what happened to freakin' Harrison Ford in Return of the Jedi, who was a huge star at that point. I think it's unfortunate that it happened to be characters played by minority actors in such beloved franchise in this case, but I also really don't think there was malicious intent on the part of the filmmakers there. I think these films had a tricky juggling act to begin with when it came to balancing all the old characters and new characters, and I also think there wasn't a ton of thought put into the trajectories of these characters when JJ first did TFA. I mean, Poe wasn't even supposed to survive the first act of TFA originally. And to be fair, I'm not sure Rian really considered what Rose's role going forward was supposed to be either.

For me, I will say that the most interesting aspect of the Finn character wasn't the color of his skin, it was the idea of a Stormtrooper who defects and becomes one of the good guys. That was the thing that felt like was never realized to the fullest potential of the idea. But for anyone who saw Finn and couldn't help but see themselves being represented in a big way in a Star Wars film, and got emotionally invested for that reason-- that really does suck that it didn't play out as great as it could've.

At the same time, I think it's also fair to acknowledge that this trilogy also did put a female hero's arc at its center, and Daisy faced a lot of backlash for it too. Maybe not as severe as what Boyega and Tran went through, but I think he may unintentionally minimizing the significance of what Rey represented to a lot of women and people overall by complaining about her having juicier material.

Not to mention, Finn could've also had a bigger role and it still could've disappointed people with how it turned out-- IE what happened with Rey's arc for a lot of people.
 
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I think the thing is, characters can get botched and sidelined in these types of movies all the time, regardless of race. Look what happened to freakin' Harrison Ford in Return of the Jedi, who was a huge star at that point. I think it's unfortunate that it happened to be characters played by minority actors in such beloved franchise in this case, but I also really don't think there was malicious intent on the part of the filmmakers there. I think these films had a tricky juggling act to begin with when it came to balancing all the old characters and new characters, and I also think there wasn't a ton of thought put into the trajectories of these characters when JJ first did TFA. I mean, Poe wasn't even supposed to survive the first act of TFA originally. And to be fair, I'm not sure Rian really considered what Rose's role going forward was supposed to be either.

For me, I will say that the most interesting aspect of the Finn character wasn't the color of his skin, it was the idea of a Stormtrooper who defects and becomes one of the good guys. That was the thing that felt like was never realized to the fullest potential of the idea. But for anyone who saw Finn and couldn't help but see themselves being represented in a big way in a Star Wars film, and got emotionally invested for that reason-- that really does suck that it didn't play out as great as it could've.

At the same time, I think it's also fair to acknowledge that this trilogy also did put a female hero's arc at its center, and Daisy faced a lot of backlash for it too. Maybe not as severe as what Boyega and Tran went through, but I think he may unintentionally minimizing the significance of what Rey represented to a lot of women and people overall by complaining about her having juicier material.

Not to mention, Finn could've also had a bigger role and it still could've disappointed people with how it turned out-- IE what happened with Rey's arc for a lot of people.

His beef rings hollow to me. Sounds like he should be taking it up with Rian Johnson if anyone.
 
His character could have been badly-written, and Boyega can smell of self-aggrandizing sour grapes who just likes finding stuff to be outraged about.

Both can be true.
 

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