Realistically, the movie already has so much to cram in, and so many characters to service-- Rey, Finn and Poe (including establishing and revelling as much as possible in their group dynamic for the first time) Kylo, Palpatine, Luke and Leia... Rose just was never going to be a big priority.
Fourth wheeling her into those scenes just for the sake of it would have just taken away time from the others and their various dynamics, the ones we actually want to see.
And having her replace the slug guy on the Falcon or being a gunner... what is that, about 20 extra seconds of meaningless screen time?
Going down the list of priorities the movie had (and collapsed under the weight of)... Rose is waaaay down the list.
This film didnt have much to cram in. By the end of TLJ there is Kylo, Rey, Poe, Finn, Rose, Leia, and Hux. Rebellions vs First Order. Jedi vs Kylo and his Knights. And possibly a civil war between Kylo and Hux. Episode 9 only needed to tell a good story to wrap up those conflicts, characters, and this trilogy.
And that is a great example of this film's biggest problem. This is supposed to be a trilogy. Not a duology of JJ playing with his own toys for 4 hours.
Rose could have went with Finn and Poe to meet the mole. Instead he has them go with some random alien technician that is never seen again. She could have went with Rey on her mission. The Falcon is big and including her wouldnt have robbed Poe and Finn of any crucial development or harmed their bromance. JJ could have had Rey and Rose become friends and given Rey a girl her own age to confide in. Rose could have been used as a gunner on the Falcon or a mechanic while Chewie was copiloting.
Instead of having her stay behind like some no name dispatcher.
I look back on Empire and at how well both Yoda and Lando were introduced. Their contribution To the overall story felt feel organic. Yoda helped to train Luke, and Lando betrayed Han and later atoned for it. Neither Rose or Holdo work in the same way, you can take both characters out and the same story could be made to work with already existing characters. Now this trilogy is over and looking back over everything the cynic in me can’t help but wonder whether Rose was simply created to appeal to the Asian market where Star Wars has had trouble breaking into, because I cannot see a logical reason for that character to actually exist from a storytelling perspective, and KMT is the one who’s had to cop the fallout from that. It again all comes down to there being no plan. There’s no plot to this trilogy, just a series of events, and like many things Rose just ultimately didn’t matter.
I look back on Empire and at how well both Yoda and Lando were introduced. Their contribution To the overall story felt feel organic. Yoda helped to train Luke, and Lando betrayed Han and later atoned for it. Neither Rose or Holdo work in the same way, you can take both characters out and the same story could be made to work with already existing characters. Now this trilogy is over and looking back over everything the cynic in me can’t help but wonder whether Rose was simply created to appeal to the Asian market where Star Wars has had trouble breaking into, because I cannot see a logical reason for that character to actually exist from a storytelling perspective, and KMT is the one who’s had to cop the fallout from that. It again all comes down to there being no plan. There’s no plot to this trilogy, just a series of events, and like many things Rose just ultimately didn’t matter.
The character of Rose was created because Rhian Johnson wanted a different dynamic with Finn when he goes to Canto. Originally it was supposed to be Finn and Poe.
The reason Kelly was cast is because Rhian was impressed with her auditions and the chemistry she had with John.
Fourth wheeling her into those scenes just for the sake of it would have just taken away time from the others and their various dynamics, the ones we actually want to see.
As opposed to show-horning in characters we've never seen before and have no purpose to the overall story?
What happened to Rose is by itself a huge problem because of the way that it effectively empowers the people who bullied her off of social media. And in a broader sense, it's one of the most blatant examples of Abrams refusing to work with what Rian had developed, in this case to the detriment of Tran's character and career.
I’ve yet to hear somebody come up with an actual plot for film 3 that could have finished off where Rian left things. I don’t care all that much for JJ as a director but the issue I have with the criticism levelled towards him here is the implication there was an easy story to craft for this last film, and that he simply needed to do better. I’m sorry, but sometimes, whether people want to admit it or not (or are just simply are uninformed with how the creative process works), sometimes, there just isn’t much to work with. Rose Tico is just one of many areas that was forced into compromised because of the lack of planning involved for the whole trilogy. I can guarantee that JJ shortchanging the character had little to do with online trolls and everything to do with lack of time, planning, and most importantly, a lack of knowing what to do with a character he did not create.
This film didnt have much to cram in. By the end of TLJ there is Kylo, Rey, Poe, Finn, Rose, Leia, and Hux. Rebellions vs First Order. Jedi vs Kylo and his Knights. And possibly a civil war between Kylo and Hux. Episode 9 only needed to tell a good story to wrap up those conflicts, characters, and this trilogy.
As opposed to show-horning in characters we've never seen before and have no purpose to the overall story?
What happened to Rose is by itself a huge problem because of the way that it effectively empowers the people who bullied her off of social media. And in a broader sense, it's one of the most blatant examples of Abrams refusing to work with what Rian had developed, in this case to the detriment of Tran's character and career.
Who? I admit I was suprised they were introducing a slew of new guys when they had so much on their plate, but as far as I remember (only seen it once)--
Jannah was there to give Finn a connection to his past, which is a great call considering how wasted he was in TLJ, and the fact that just about everybody wanted his story line to be leading some kind of Stormtrooper revolution... It was decidedly NOT good in execution (because again, they had way too much to cram in) but at least they hinted at it.
Same for Poe-- definitely needed something after being saddled with an almost equally wasteful story in TLJ, a Zorri at least gave him a new side to him and slightly more depth (again, could have and should have been more, but they had a lot).
Pryde was there because Hux was left toothless after RJ turned him into Elmer Fudd last time, and they needed a somewhat imposing to take his place after rightfully closing off the hints they he'd betray Kylo TLJ left.
The best I can think of right now is giving her all Merry's lines-- I don't know why he was there other than once working on one of JJ's shows (that he barely had anything to do with after a season or so, right?). Give her those... You get an extra minute and a half of randomly expositional lines... But not much else.
Rose... Hell, I'd argue she shouldn't have even been in TLJ. RJ said he came up with her, at least partly, because Finn and Poe were too similar... Which is BS. We barely saw the two of them interact in TFA (but what we did see of them, we loved) so there was plenty of room to have them actually get to know each other in that film and create tension-- Hell, in TRoS they didn't see eye-to-eye on everything. The TLJ story was Finn not being totally committed to the cause, while Rose definitely is... Just like Poe. Also, thinking super retroactively-- Zorri would have been better for that movie than DJ.
Oh, as for the online bullying-- Yeah, that really sucks that happened, and it sucks if those a-holes are feeling like they won something because this movie didn't have anything for her. But honestly, I don't know if I'd be deliberately shoehorning a character in because of it either.
Who? I admit I was suprised they were introducing a slew of new guys when they had so much on their plate, but as far as I remember (only seen it once)--
Jannah was there to give Finn a connection to his past, which is a great call considering how wasted he was in TLJ, and the fact that just about everybody wanted his story line to be leading some kind of Stormtrooper revolution... It was decidedly NOT good in execution (because again, they had way too much to cram in) but at least they hinted at it.
Same for Poe-- definitely needed something after being saddled with an almost equally wasteful story in TLJ, a Zorri at least gave him a new side to him and slightly more depth (again, could have and should have been more, but they had a lot).
Pryde was there because Hux was left toothless after RJ turned him into Elmer Fudd last time, and they needed a somewhat imposing to take his place after rightfully closing off the hints they he'd betray Kylo TLJ left.
The best I can think of right now is giving her all Merry's lines-- I don't know why he was there other than once working on one of JJ's shows (that he barely had anything to do with after a season or so, right?). Give her those... You get an extra minute and a half of randomly expositional lines... But not much else.
Rose... Hell, I'd argue she shouldn't have even been in TLJ. RJ said he came up with her, at least partly, because Finn and Poe were too similar... Which is BS. We barely saw the two of them interact in TFA (but what we did see of them, we loved) so there was plenty of room to have them actually get to know each other in that film and create tension-- Hell, in TRoS they didn't see eye-to-eye on everything. The TLJ story was Finn not being totally committed to the cause, while Rose definitely is... Just like Poe. Also, thinking super retroactively-- Zorri would have been better for that movie than DJ.
Oh, as for the online bullying-- Yeah, that really sucks that happened, and it sucks if those a-holes are feeling like they won something because this movie didn't have anything for her. But honestly, I don't know if I'd be deliberately shoehorning a character in because of it either.
Not at all. When TLJ ends, the First Order controls the galaxy, the Resistance is less than 20 people, Kylo is the big bad and has made his choice, Luke is at peace and moved on, Rey is a Jedi, the Sith are dead and gone, Kylo wants to destroy the Jedi, Hux wants to kill Kylo. And there are the Knights of Ren. The board is set for a tight and straightforward showdown between light and dark.
All the fat in Episode 9 was introduced or reintroduced in Episode 9 by Abrams needlessly.
There was absolutely no need to reintroduce Sidious, an entire separate military with millions of Imperials, a Sith cult of thousands, two pointless macguffins, more than one fetchquest, the Dyad, Ochi, a Sith dagger, a lazy redemption arc, a fleet of imperial death star destroyers, an old flame of Poe's,
Finn having Force powers, Hux being a mole,
that stupid Ahch-to diversion, readdress the imbalance of the Force, General Pryde, Dominic's no name random historian... its frankly impressive how much stuff Abrams needlessly put in Episode 9. What's even more astounding is that load of stuff isnt even all that Abrams tried to cram in. He left a subplot of Jannah being Lando's long lost daughter on the cutting room floor, and I really doubt that's the only new subplot that was cut.
Episode 9 didnt even need to tie everything in a bow, or entirely eliminate the First Order because there was nothing stopping them from making an Episode 10.
Not at all. When TLJ ends, the First Order controls the galaxy, the Resistance is less than 20 people, Kylo is the big bad and has made his choice, Luke is at peace and moved on, Rey is a Jedi, the Sith are dead and gone, Kylo wants to destroy the Jedi, Hux wants to kill Kylo. And there are the Knights of Ren. The board is set for a tight and straightforward showdown between light and dark.
All the fat in Episode 9 was introduced or reintroduced in Episode 9 by Abrams needlessly.
There was absolutely no need to reintroduce Sidious, an entire separate military with millions of Imperials, a Sith cult of thousands, two pointless macguffins, more than one fetchquest, the Dyad, Ochi, a Sith dagger, a lazy redemption arc, a fleet of imperial death star destroyers, an old flame of Poe's,
Finn having Force powers, Hux being a mole,
that stupid Ahch-to diversion, readdress the imbalance of the Force, General Pryde, Dominic's no name random historian... its frankly impressive how much stuff Abrams needlessly put in Episode 9. What's even more astounding is that load of stuff isnt even all that Abrams tried to cram in. He left a subplot of Jannah being Lando's long lost daughter on the cutting room floor, and I really doubt that's the only new subplot that was cut.
Episode 9 didnt even need to tie everything in a bow, or entirely eliminate the First Order because there was nothing stopping them from making an Episode 10.
I honestly never looked at it this way, it shows that there was a good base for Episode 9 on paper.
Which brings me to the question, why did they even decide its only supposed to be a Trilogy?
I mean even if you say that TLJ left you with nothing, what stopped them from using episode 9 to build something and then finish it with episode 10?
Wouldnt that have made things a bit rounder going 10 "episodes"?
Why not going the full number and instead forcing yourself to cram it into a trilogy?
I never thought about it.
But what’s the ****ing plot? You all keep bringing up threads that don’t actual drive anything story wise from the first two films. All you literally have is good guys vs bad guys, no actually narrative that flows on from TLJ. This is what I mean by people not understanding what JJ had to work with and how the creative process works and why he’s being unfairly **** upon. TLJ ending with Rey turning and taking Kylo’s hand is exactly the type of narrative point that leads to better creative outcomes because it’s a starting point for JJ or some other director to work with. It sets up a natural flow in the third act for Rey to either turn bad entirely and for Kylo to redeem himself, or for Rey to realise her mistake and realise Kylo has gone to far and must be stopped. But it didn’t leave with that cliffhanger and instead TLJ leaves you with nothing more than Kylo is now running the galaxy and the rebel alliance reforming, which is about as generic a ****ing plot point you can get for the third part of which is suppose to be a 3 act story. You’re basically starting from scratch from that point because the last two movies don’t have a consistent thread that link them together, so is it any wonder this film if a bloody mess with about 2-3 films worth of stuff happening and why Rose was screwed over? It’s because he was trying to do an entire trilogy’s worth of things into one movie.
Who? I admit I was suprised they were introducing a slew of new guys when they had so much on their plate, but as far as I remember (only seen it once)--
Jannah was there to give Finn a connection to his past, which is a great call considering how wasted he was in TLJ, and the fact that just about everybody wanted his story line to be leading some kind of Stormtrooper revolution... It was decidedly NOT good in execution (because again, they had way too much to cram in) but at least they hinted at it.
Same for Poe-- definitely needed something after being saddled with an almost equally wasteful story in TLJ, a Zorri at least gave him a new side to him and slightly more depth (again, could have and should have been more, but they had a lot).
Pryde was there because Hux was left toothless after RJ turned him into Elmer Fudd last time, and they needed a somewhat imposing to take his place after rightfully closing off the hints they he'd betray Kylo TLJ left.
The best I can think of right now is giving her all Merry's lines-- I don't know why he was there other than once working on one of JJ's shows (that he barely had anything to do with after a season or so, right?). Give her those... You get an extra minute and a half of randomly expositional lines... But not much else.
Rose... Hell, I'd argue she shouldn't have even been in TLJ. RJ said he came up with her, at least partly, because Finn and Poe were too similar... Which is BS. We barely saw the two of them interact in TFA (but what we did see of them, we loved) so there was plenty of room to have them actually get to know each other in that film and create tension-- Hell, in TRoS they didn't see eye-to-eye on everything. The TLJ story was Finn not being totally committed to the cause, while Rose definitely is... Just like Poe. Also, thinking super retroactively-- Zorri would have been better for that movie than DJ.
Oh, as for the online bullying-- Yeah, that really sucks that happened, and it sucks if those a-holes are feeling like they won something because this movie didn't have anything for her. But honestly, I don't know if I'd be deliberately shoehorning a character in because of it either.
Not at all. When TLJ ends, the First Order controls the galaxy, the Resistance is less than 20 people, Kylo is the big bad and has made his choice, Luke is at peace and moved on, Rey is a Jedi, the Sith are dead and gone, Kylo wants to destroy the Jedi, Hux wants to kill Kylo. And there are the Knights of Ren. The board is set for a tight and straightforward showdown between light and dark.
All the fat in Episode 9 was introduced or reintroduced in Episode 9 by Abrams needlessly.
There was absolutely no need to reintroduce Sidious, an entire separate military with millions of Imperials, a Sith cult of thousands, two pointless macguffins, more than one fetchquest, the Dyad, Ochi, a Sith dagger, a lazy redemption arc, a fleet of imperial death star destroyers, an old flame of Poe's,
Finn having Force powers, Hux being a mole,
that stupid Ahch-to diversion, readdress the imbalance of the Force, General Pryde, Dominic's no name random historian... its frankly impressive how much stuff Abrams needlessly put in Episode 9. What's even more astounding is that load of stuff isnt even all that Abrams tried to cram in. He left a subplot of Jannah being Lando's long lost daughter on the cutting room floor, and I really doubt that's the only new subplot that was cut.
Episode 9 didnt even need to tie everything in a bow, or entirely eliminate the First Order because there was nothing stopping them from making an Episode 10.
I would point to Marvolo's excellent point below. While at least Jannah and Zori served developmental purposes, neither of them were nessecary. You have a strange definition of "shoe-horning". Including a main leading character from the previous film is not shoe-horning, because the character is expected and "supposed" to be there.
But what’s the ****ing plot? You all keep bringing up threads that don’t actual drive anything story wise from the first two films. All you literally have is good guys vs bad guys, no actually narrative that flows on from TLJ. This is what I mean by people not understanding what JJ had to work with and how the creative process works and why he’s being unfairly **** upon. TLJ ending with Rey turning and taking Kylo’s hand is exactly the type of narrative point that leads to better creative outcomes because it’s a starting point for JJ or some other director to work with. It sets up a natural flow in the third act for Rey to either turn bad entirely and for Kylo to redeem himself, or for Rey to realise her mistake and realise Kylo has gone to far and must be stopped. But it didn’t leave with that cliffhanger and instead TLJ leaves you with nothing more than Kylo is now running the galaxy and the rebel alliance reforming, which is about as generic a ****ing plot point you can get for the third part of which is suppose to be a 3 act story. You’re basically starting from scratch from that point because the last two movies don’t have a consistent thread that link them together, so is it any wonder this film if a bloody mess with about 2-3 films worth of stuff happening and why Rose was screwed over? It’s because he was trying to do an entire trilogy’s worth of things into one movie.
The people of the galaxy actually do answer the call of the Resistance and the First Order, already stretched thin, is on its heels. Kylo, seething from his humiliation on Crait, is now detirmined to do whatever it takes to secure power and the journey brings him back to where it began - the Knights of Ren, who want to revive the ancient Sith Order. Our heroes have to stop them.
Bit hard to make that story when it’s never been established exactly who the first order are, what their level of strength is and what it is they actually ****ing want. This is why this trilogy is a disaster, because no ****ing thought was put into any of this stuff. The First Order? Some type of group which emerged from the ashes of the Empire who seemingly built up enough resources to have their super weapon be destroyed and still survive, despite the fact their predecessors suffered a massive setback when the same thing happened to them, with their ultimate goal of......taking over the galaxy??? I think?
Bit hard to make that story when it’s never been established exactly who the first order are, what their level of strength is and what it is they actually ****ing want. This is why this trilogy is a disaster, because no ****ing thought was put into any of this stuff. The First Order? Some type of group which emerged from the ashes of the Empire who seemingly built up enough resources to have their super weapon be destroyed and still survive, despite the fact their predecessors suffered a massive setback when the same thing happened to them, with their ultimate goal of......taking over the galaxy??? I think?
Some type of group which emerged from the ashes of the Empire who seemingly built up enough resources to have their super weapon be destroyed and still survive, despite the fact their predecessors suffered a massive setback when the same thing happened to them, with their ultimate goal of......taking over the galaxy??? I think?
I mean, I agree, more context for the First Order and the state of the galaxy would've been ideal and I think it's a misstep of TFA to gloss over it but, I think from Hux's speech alone in TFA it's super clear and obvious what they want. They despise The Republic, and want to reestablish what they see as "order" in the galaxy, and bring back the so-called glory days of The Empire.
As for what happened to their predecessors...to be fair, after the destruction of the first Death Star, the Empire is still shown to be stronger than ever in the very next film and have the Rebels on the run from the start.
While The First Order suffered a major loss in TFA, they still took out 5 systems in the process including the capital of the Republic and the entire Republic fleet. More emphasis on this and what that meant would've definitely helped strengthen this idea, but in broad strokes you can still get the idea that Leia's Resistance is a much smaller, rag-tag unsanctioned army, and were the only ones taking the threat of the First Order seriously enough. Thus the New Republic's complacency is part of their downfall. Kind of similar to the last time, creating a theme of history repeating itself that the new trilogy deals with.
To be honest, there's about as much context for why The First Order exists as there is as to why Separatists exist in the prequels. And the ultimate answer in both cases comes back to Palpatine pulling the strings on a galactic scale for his own gain.
I'd explore this. The big Resistance plot is to cripple the First Order by deprogramming their troops. Dig deep into the group's origins and massive resources. You can heavily lean into Finn's backstory at the same time, maybe even pick up the thread about arms dealers in Canto Bight. The search can still lead back to a creepy Sith planet cause they're fun. The obvious choice (probably too obvious) for the First Order's scheme would be some kind of mass mind-control tech. Someone can think of something better but hell, I'd take it over another Death Star.
It's always possible to spitball ideas. But it shouldn't be necessary to basically develop a plot and character dynamics from scratch in the 3rd part of a trilogy.
We can try to imagine something that might make the First Order interesting, but it isn't interesting coming into this movie. Neither are the character dynamics.
Just to take the two most obvious examples:
The Two Towers (2) has Frodo and Sam make the risky but ultimately fateful choice of allying themselves with Gollum and taking his guidance on how to enter Mordor. Gandalf, Aragorn and the others resolve the situation in Rohan, thereby securing an ally that proves to be decisive before the walls of Minas Tirith (3).
TESB has Leia and Han acknowledging their romantic feelings at the moment when Han is captured and frozen in ice. Luke is defeated by Vader and emotionally crushed by the revelation that Vader is his father. These are the two main storylines to be resolved in RotJ: liberating Han and confronting Vader, in addition to the Emperor (who has never appeared previously) and the Empire.
I've always felt that the narrative of the last Harry Potter book is a bit of a mess, but even there, the idea of the Horcruxes is developed substantially in the preceding book, with one of the Horcruxes being the focus of the climactic sequence of that book, and Harry is deprived of his mentor at that point.
The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are both pretty good movies considered in isolation, but they did a terrible job of crafting a story for the trilogy as a whole.
What happened to Rose in this movie was systematic of Abrams and Terrio stuffing in basically the plots of three trilogies of movies all into one movie under two and a half hours.
No Star Wars movie is as stuffed as Rise of Skywalker. Not one. These stories are supposed to be action serials. Swashbuckling adventures.
Also these movies generally don't spend a lot of time developing or fleshing out supporting characters. They just sort of exist, appear, and then disappear.
Lando was one character in Empire Strikes Back. Rise of Skywalker basically tries to add like several Landos, INCLUDING the actual Lando.
But Wedge Antilles, who is in all three movies. What does Wedge even do in those films? Very f'n little.
Lucas shot a ton of material for the original movie for Biggs. There's a whole subplot with Luke and Wedge about their friendship with Biggs revealing to Luke he's defecting. Wedge is going out and seeing the galaxy and becoming a hotshot pilot. It's interesting, but all that material got snipped and it makes the original Star Wars a lean, streamlined faster paced movie. It focuses on the core character and cuts all the fat. And then the special edition restores a Biggs scene. Let me ask. Does the original Star Wars work better with or without that Biggs scene on Yavin?
And you know what? It's cool to see that Luke has an old friend he knows in the Rebel Alliance. But the fact that we never knew about this character and his pre-established relationship with Luke never hurt those films.
So my other point is here you can't give everyone this big dramatic character arc. This story was never about Rose to begin with. Rey was always the main character. And there's only so much screentime you can give everyone.
They wrote too much stuff. You could easily lose a couple of characters, maguffins and planets and the film would be better for it.
The explanation that Rose was benched to anchor Leia scenes is so weak. They loved Rose so much that thought of no interesting contribution she could bring to the film other than to be a prop for Carrie Fisher deleted scenes.
LOTR is the perfect example of knowing the plot of the entire trilogy. We establish in film one that the Ring needs to be destroyed, the cliffhanger is the breaking of the fellowship and Frodo continuing the journey with Sam. Film two follows that story on but introduces new obstacles in Gollum and Faramir, whilst the rest of the fellowship have to help defend Rohan, the cliffhanger is the victory at Helms Deep and the march to Isengard, and Frodo being lured into a trap by Gollum. Film three resolves the issues left over from film two resulting in the Ring finally being destroyed. The plot of LOTR is set up from the beginning - A hobbit must make the perilous journey to destroy a magic ring.
But it also had to contend with characters from the book that shouldn't actually be there. Galadriel honestly isn't really required, nor is a character like Faramir. From a story telling perspective Jackson had every right to remove them because they do nothing but halt the story. But because the underlying plot is clear and concise - destroy the ring - those characters still manage to work. Because we don't know what the overall plot of this trilogy is characters like Rose and Holdo stand out like a saw thumb, because we don't actually know what the stakes are for everyone. Imagine if the Two Towers ended with Frodo suddenly deciding he not longer wanted to continue the journey, that he simply dropped the ring on the ground and walked home. Yes, you could still come back in part 3 and pick up where the story left off, but you've killed off all the momentum for people. Broom Boy is the equivalent of that. The idea of Luke's legacy inspiring the next generation is a good idea, but only if that is the last shot of your trilogy, not the second of three parts. That type of shot will result in people walking away with a sense of finality regardless of what comes next.
Yes but we also can't forget there was a lot of rewriting and massaging and mixing and matching done for Lord of the Rings.
At one point they actually had Sauron return at the end and fight Aragon, which instead became that armored cave troll which they just CG'ed over Sauron.
Let's also not forget warrior Arwen at Helm's Deep, which was filmed. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.
Makes me curious to learn all that extra excised and alternate footage of subplots we never got to see that never made it into the extended editions.
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