HellforLeather
Member
I really dislike going to theaters so I've been waiting for this to release on digital and I finally watched it the other day. I think its a fairly thematically competent final act to a trilogy that doesnt really exist. I'll just break down what I mean as briefly as possible
Kylo Ren's character with a disposition towards the light side but trying to be dark and Rey having a disposition to the dark side but trying to be light and all the complications and conflicts that would arise from this as well as the struggle of agency v. "destiny" is a pretty great foundation for a trilogy. Especially for this trilogy since it carries all the burden of the previous movies that constantly deal with prophecy, "chosen ones", balancing the force, etc etc. In terms of broad strokes, I think its solid.
The issue really comes up with the films themselves where its obvious that it was never really quite planned out this way and shoehorned into the 3rd movie. Yes, you can find threads of this in all 3 movies regarding Kylo Ren but Rey being revealed as a Palpatine and the addition of Palpatine himself really feels thrown in there to drive home the duality aspect.
As for Palpatine himself, I really think it would have been better if they scaled down the movie and maybe have Palpatine appear as a force ghost at some point instead of him being actually alive. It seems that he was added in along with his universe ending fleet and millions of loyal crew members (best kept secret in the universe??) just so they could have some kind of huge epic spectacle battle at the end.
Other than that, the movie is kinda messy, especially the first half where they seem to just rush through so much stuff (Palpatine, somehow has returned! McGuffin hunt,etc). I think the absence of Leia is really painful. It make sense that she would have trained with Luke and I think some Yoda-style mentoring scenes could have been really cool and a bit of a breather from the frantic pace of the rest of the movie. I could go on and on and on.
TL;DR: Its ok but could have been great if they set out to tell this story from the beginning of the trilogy.
Kylo Ren's character with a disposition towards the light side but trying to be dark and Rey having a disposition to the dark side but trying to be light and all the complications and conflicts that would arise from this as well as the struggle of agency v. "destiny" is a pretty great foundation for a trilogy. Especially for this trilogy since it carries all the burden of the previous movies that constantly deal with prophecy, "chosen ones", balancing the force, etc etc. In terms of broad strokes, I think its solid.
The issue really comes up with the films themselves where its obvious that it was never really quite planned out this way and shoehorned into the 3rd movie. Yes, you can find threads of this in all 3 movies regarding Kylo Ren but Rey being revealed as a Palpatine and the addition of Palpatine himself really feels thrown in there to drive home the duality aspect.
As for Palpatine himself, I really think it would have been better if they scaled down the movie and maybe have Palpatine appear as a force ghost at some point instead of him being actually alive. It seems that he was added in along with his universe ending fleet and millions of loyal crew members (best kept secret in the universe??) just so they could have some kind of huge epic spectacle battle at the end.
Other than that, the movie is kinda messy, especially the first half where they seem to just rush through so much stuff (Palpatine, somehow has returned! McGuffin hunt,etc). I think the absence of Leia is really painful. It make sense that she would have trained with Luke and I think some Yoda-style mentoring scenes could have been really cool and a bit of a breather from the frantic pace of the rest of the movie. I could go on and on and on.
TL;DR: Its ok but could have been great if they set out to tell this story from the beginning of the trilogy.