The Rise of Skywalker: Discussion

This thread is a twisty conch shell of calcified craziness!

Firstly, to be totally random, I read myself back and this is hilarious out of context:


I do speak to flesh-and-blood people. Sometimes. But I sound like I'm ageist or something.

Oh, well... I guess I'm a Force Ghost, resting up the rest of the time, existing and persisting in the netherworld of Naberrie Fields...



Resonances between Star Wars and The Muppets will never end. It's an infinite braid. Nice observations. Also: Remember that time, in "From Puppets To Pixels", Lucas described Yoda ("ironically": CG Yoda) as "the illegitimate child of Kermit and Miss Piggy"?

33:20



"If that hits the National Enquirer, we're all dead."

Love it. 

But yeah, it's very meta, TFA is. OMG, random Yoda speak...

I actually wrote a big fat essay about it -- well, chiefly, its first and second teaser trailers -- on TFN in 2015. This was April 2015, to be precise, before Comic-Con, before other trailers and plot leaks. I still think it's one of the best things I've ever written:

boards.theforce.net/threads/how-the-story-arc-of-the-pt-subverts-the-traditional-hollywood-hype-machine-experience.50029546/#post-52337336

The Sequel Trilogy is ludicrously meta. I mean, all the Star Wars films, really, are dripping with self-conscious, auto-correcting awareness. TFA really cranked things up a notch, however, by summoning up those mighty totems: Han and the Falcon. Luke and the lightsaber are the esoteric draws of TFA, but Han and the Falcon are the exoteric ones.

In that regard, TFA actually provides a very unique look at the Star Wars mythos, since the two sets of totemic dyads are further bound in a meta-dyad of their own. Like great trees or the episode numerals of AOTC. I also noticed today that the main TROS trailer starts with a forest shot (well, duh), but there are two darker-looking foregrounded trees that stand parallel to each other, evoking the same concept, with sunlight bursting over the one tree versus the other:



And, incidentally, a training helmet clanks to the ground as Rey runs into frame with Luke's lightsaber while fending off laser blasts from training balls, again summoning up Han and the Falcon (Luke fending off blasts from the training ball with the "blast shield" down in ANH), and Luke and the legacy of the Jedi. 

But in TLJ and TROS, the meta-dyad of Han and the Falcon and Luke and the lightsaber are joined by another legacy dyad: Luke and Leia. The Skywalker twins are faintly acknowledged in TFA, but it becomes much clearer in the sequels that their story is being extended and concluded and put into deeper context. So, I guess, ultimately, it's more of a legacy triad. 

This triadic aspect of the saga is utterly fascinating. For instance, at the end of the PT, a Skywalker fails to save his beloved from death, and actually causes her death to come about with his embrace of the Dark Side. At the end of the OT, he rejects the dark and saves his son from being killed in the process. And at the climax of the ST, a Skywalker again gives his life to save another, but this time actually revives the other and literally gives his Life Force to her -- the ultimate victory of the Light over the Dark, and a fitting restoration of the Skywalker name, made complete when Rey makes her pilgrimage to the homestead and adopts the name at the end.

You could make a compelling case that this is why it could only be Palpatine again at the end of the trilogy. He has been influencing the fate of this family all along, and in the ST, he purposely set out to enact his revenge (or "REVENGE" as the title crawl says). He is the saga's Satanic manipulator of life and death, the arch fiend that has loomed large like one of those underwater Naboo sea monsters over the Skywalker name for decades, perhaps centuries. And only when he tries to interfere by colouring the Skywalker bloodline with his own does he truly come undone, with Rey and Kylo's unlikely bond (thanks, midi-chloRian Johnson!), and Rey using the sabers of Luke and Leia against him -- multiple generations aligned and now combined in their Megazord configuration against a diabolical threat (Palpatine is truly "The Phantom Menace" in all three trilogies), finally casting that threat out of the multiverse/Many Worlds matrix of the Force... or whatever.

Sorry. I've gone way, way off your Muppets analogy and the points you were undoubtedly making. But you've hit on a deeper idea orthogonally. Basically, the ST is sort of a "parallel universe" interpretation: people dealing with the cosmic bruise of the incidents that shaped the PT and OT, and ultimately, without realising it till late in the game, giving of themselves to redeem all universes, all tangents. It's that final confrontation with Palpatine that makes it what it is. When Palpatine is shooting that lightning into the sky, his paralysing blue bolts evoke the notion of destiny, and then Rey looks up at the sky, beyond all that noise, gazing at the deeper cosmos, the truth behind all illusions, like she is in communion with The Whills. The voices of the Jedi and all her ancestors in a furious flash of inspiration. "When you quiet your mind, you'll hear them speaking to you." It's a really brilliant end to the whole saga.  Okay, I've still only seen it once, as of this writing, but I'm starting to think this movie -- and the whole Sequel Trilogy undertaking (or what this movie does to redeem it) -- is a wonderful piece of fantasy entertainment: epic, integrated, and ludicrously underrated.

Cryogenic
My Condolences

In the middle of watching TROS a third time, and I need to drop off some pressing thoughts (My condolences as well, John, of course):

The crawl got the rhythm exactly right.

I realize now that Kylo's lightsaber is not just any cross but an inverted one. I'm probably late to this party. Even more interesting, in my memory at least, is that Kylo seems to be holding his saber upside down quite often now, creating a regular cross, and Rey also does the backwards lightsaber trick throughout this movie.

The necklace that the little pig-nosed hippie alien gives Rey, is none other than a rosary by its design.

The festival is reminiscent of Mos Espa with the "sweets" 3PO mentions. Episode I vibes all through this movie.

D-0's introduction is not only a repetition of the Force-healing theme, but that touching little moment between him, BB-8 and Rey was very much the same beat as Jar Jar and Padme, and sleeping Jar Jar with cold lil Annie and Padme aboard the Naboo cruiser.

One of the first things that clicked for me after seeing TROS is that Ach-To is OCTO or Episode 8, and Exegol (though Pyro's pet theory is "log.exe" or vice versa) is HEXAGON. The eternal HEX or even the third 6 of order 66 or the placeholder of Episode XI, whether it be III or IX. It always comes back to Palpatine. More to "unpack" here I sense. Episode XII is inevitable, methinks. Maybe bring back George for that, if he's still animated.

The structure of Exegol *IS* the Jawa sandcrawler. Do with that what you will.

Probably more to come as I'm only in the middle of my third view. Things are fibally falling into place, and it's solidifying my opinion of TROS as the best Star Wars movie yet, wet blankets bedamned.

A couple/few other beats I just caught, from the Duel on Endor. Beginnings and endings combining again.

The music from the scene where Luke removes Vader's helmet as she ascends the wreckage of Death Star II is preceded by Rey's Force cave-Bespin maze vision where she encounters herself yet again as a Sith where Maul's Sith chattering is heard. She is soon thrusted into an attack on Kylo in the baptismal ocean spray/Reyne and for the majority of the fight, there is NO MUSIC, like the Podcrace, only it doesnt last too long. It's an inspired moment, especially for a JJ SW film, to let the action and the weight of the plot speak for itself, directly juxtaposed to the heat, fire, and bombast of the choral score that accompanied Anakin and Obi-Wan's Mustafar fight. The ST has more quiet in the storm than the PT, if you can just fathom it for a few moments.

(ArchDuke, I apologize for some of my tone after my initial viewing of the movie, but I really did feel betrayed by my kin when I returned here.)

The kicker in this scene for me, this time, is that after Rey catches Kylo's lightsaber, and before she heals him, is that she deals the killing blow to the "serpent" with Kylo's upside-down inverted-cross hold. The last time we see Kylo's Satanic sword is when it's inverted back at him, and immediately following a blessing by his Holy Mother, resulting in her spiritual daughter, twin-of-her-son, Rey's repentance-and-healing of her has-Ben son.

That's the best way I can put it right now.

Thanks, man. It's all the usual stuff: Life, death, renewal, and speculations on what lies beyond. And that's just the four (c'mon -- you know there will be!) Star Wars trilogies!


I thought that. It's snappy, flamboyant, informative, cheesy... 

More or less the model SW crawl.

What really helps set TROS apart here, and on so many concurrent levels, is that the narrative of the film takes place several years after TFA and TLJ. If those were a joined-up sentence, TROS is basically its own paragraph. The Star Wars flavour returns in the second Abrams movie for various reasons, buoyed by the fact that an appealing fixture of the series is the films are episodic and there's usually a time jump.

Like going into hyperspace. Heck, that hyperspace skipping sequence -- to spin another interpretation on top of my previous one -- is almost an apology from Abrams that there's little time to go to all these other worlds, and that the film is naturally (or "unnaturally") constrained to a specific set of plot choices and thematic waypoints. I swear, that sequence is really clever: exhilarating, and opens the mind's inner eye. 

But yeah, I like it when Star Wars films leap forward, because we normally see an upgraded/transmutated protagonist (in the third film, a "Skywalker" is normally more integrated; and they either lose that integration (ROTS) or gain more of it (ROTJ, TROS) -- or, I guess, Kylo is an inversion of Anakin in ROTS), and it's fun to imagine what everyone's been up to in-between. Like a reunion. TROS definitely has that slam-dunk, homecoming feel about it. In this one, JJ brings it all home. Literally.


Late to the party? That's brilliant! Ha! Your observation, not your aphorism. Though that's fine, too. I think Kylo also stabs a guy backwards, and even "moonwalks" along the ground, in the opening sequence. They've worked out how to put the car in reverse. That's nice. But yeah, intriguing symbolism you've noticed, to be sure. 


Oh, my! Great! You just reminded me. There was a quibble at the care home the other day when I visited my grandmother for the last time. Her rosary had apparently been misplaced. I guess they found it. Kylo must have been the culprit! OMG, Klyo... I sound like I'm impugning myself. 

Anyway, that necklace-snatching moment you talked about earlier is very in-keeping with Kylo wanting, in a way, to "get even" with Rey, after she shuts the door of the Millennium Falcon on him and the dice vanish on Crait. Maybe he also wants "a piece of her" (if you know what I'm saying...).

And Rey's reaction makes perfect sense. Not only is their location now threatened with discovery (echoing Luke's concern in the third OT movie that he's endangering the mission after he thinks Vader might have sensed him as they gain clearance to land on Endor), but Kylo has done something personal and snatched away Rey's happiness. She had a small token of belonging (look how overjoyed she is when she receives the necklace), and Kylo instantly seizes it through the Force, no doubt making Rey feel rattled and unsafe. So her Dark Side-fuelled assassination attempt in that desert mesa shows her trying to kill Kylo in defence of her friends and repressed anger of what he took from her -- kinda how Palpatine baits Luke into attacking him, triggering his violent clash with Vader.


I suppose it is -- or Boonta Eve. The snacks given out at the podrace, the pallies that Anakin insists Qui-Gon will like, and Jar Jar slurping the fruit at the dinner table. Definitely a lot of Episode I vibes. The concept of Kylo and Rey being a "Force Dyad", some special configuration in the Force, also seems to echo Qui-Gon describing Anakin as "a vergence in the Force" in front of the Jedi Council, whom he first discovers on Tatooine. Pretty neat.

We don't have Jar Jar stepping in poop on Pasaana, but we do have our heroes falling into a strange patch of black beads (itself echoed with the -- *cough* -- jar of red beads/berries you mentioned getting sliced open or knocked over when Rey and Kylo duel after Kylo has gone looking for them on Kijimi). And I really love the bright colours in this part of all our heroes together. Especially BB-8 piercing the canister and releasing that paint bomb (a part that really got my attention in the trailer). Very much a "Holi" (AKA "Festival Of Colours") vibe:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holi

From footnote 136:

web.archive.org/web/20150801065544/http://www.villagevoice.com/slideshow/portraits-from-holi-nyc-6305683

Holi Hai, also known as the Festival of Colors, celebrates the coming of spring, the joy of friendship, and equality for all . . . The powders used in Holi represent happiness, love, and the freedom to live vibrantly. 

Sort of the opposite of life as Kylo and life under the First Order. Though even Kylo now carries a piece of Pasaana through the halls of power, and his own mask looks like the cracks in it were deliberately painted, which was highly intentional:

nerdist.com/article/rise-of-skywalker-kylo-ren-helmet/

skytalkers.com/2019/04/24/kintsugi-transformative-repair-a-meta/

www.lifegate.com/people/lifestyle/kintsugi

So what's happening on Pasaana also symbolically occasions TROS as a celebration of the entire Star Wars saga -- after all, aren't all the episodes friends of each other, and effectively equal, deep down? And Episode I, of course, was advertised as coming in "Spring 1999". It wouldn't be a bookmark installment without a celebration (or a desert planet), would it?


Great observations. Also, in this episode, BB-8 essentially gets to be the "big brother" to another little(r) droid (just as Artoo later fixes up and restores the memories of his "bigger brother" C-3PO), reminding one of the hierarchical staircase characters in SW are forever ascending and often changing places on. 


I think Palpatine comes back just to get destroyed -- he likes it. He enjoys a good yell. In Episode III, Yoda flings him back over his office table, and later reflects his lightning, producing a wail from Palpatine/Sidious in both instances. In Episode VI, Anakin tosses him down the reactor shaft, producing a loud and prolonged Edvard Munch-style "scream". In Episode IX, Rey messes up his face and Palpy wails once more. Even if he has to lose, he likes to feel orgasmic in that moment. Palpatine is now like this saga's very own Sisyphus. He's a glutton for punishment; returning only to be inevitably thwarted again. Sort of like that one Battle Droid, last of his fellows to fall over, making that "oooh-aaaah" sound in the hangar bay of the Invisible Hand. People may see this is just cheesy and unimaginative, but it's very much in the B-movie tradition that Star Wars is rooted in. And there are spiritual overtones to all of it.

In line with your own reflections, firstly... I just love that name: Exegol. It's super cool and an instant fit. But I was also thinking of the cross symbolism you first ruminated on in your post on Page One. It's in the name of the planet: Ex. And it's also the second symbol of the Episode IX sigil. Even Rey's outfit crosses over at the front. And, as you said, she destroys Palpatine by crossing Luke and Leia's sabers together. Crossing the streams. It's very "Ghostbusters"-ish. Ectoplasm wouldn't have been out of place in this movie. I guess there was Palpatine's moist-looking, salamander-like face. 


Nice. The big basilisk-like structure of the Sith Temple (or whatever that place was) reminded me of Ra's spaceship in "Stargate" (the movie). 


I've only seen it once, but *might* be going for a second viewing. My sister is visiting next week, and a nearer cinema is now showing it. 

But, for the time being, I'm reading articles and watching various clips. Just came upon this behind-the-scenes reel last night. Nothing earth-shattering, but I love the clarity of the footage (although the sound is intermittent). It seems the principal actors had a lot of fun in each other's company. You can also tell a lot of work went into making the film, regardless of how pressed for time they were, and in spite of already-cliched and overly-simplistic accusations of "fan service". Here it is:





And Rey is protective toward the Falcon -- always. Though she herself bashed it up when trying to take off from the market place on Jakku. In Poe's defence, he never damages BB-8. Though there is that moment in TLJ when he runs to the hangar, telling BB-8 to start hix X-wing up ahead of him, and then Kylo attacks the hangar, which results in BB-8 losing his head piece. But yeah, that's interesting, and does, indeed, sound very meta. I guess the tree falling on BB-8 also foreshadows Rey "killing" Chewie.



"Quiet in the storm" makes me think of those moments when Rey relies on the Force to calm herself, like that moment in TFA when Kylo pins her against the edge of the cliff in their forest duel, or when she gazes up to the heavens and hears the voices of the Jedi imploring her to rise up and defeat Palpatine (incidentally: a similar idea was dropped for Luke confronting Palpatine and being egged on by the spirits of Obi-Wan and Yoda in ROTJ). There was quite a lot of odd serenity to that moon of Endor with the Death Star wreckage (and, again, incidentally: the "ruins of the Second Death Star" imagery was originally planned for Episode VII, then explored for Episode VIII, and finally utilised at the end of the trilogy). Kind of appropriate. Kylo even has his beatific vision of Han (a memory enhanced by Leia's powers) in this location. You say the water is like Kylo being baptised. Yes. I guess it also helped cleanse the ruins of their latent evil. Though Rey finds Dark Rey (her own complicated sexuality with neat scissor-sabered Freudian overtones) lurking literally "in the closest" of the throne room structure. Sexy Rey. Sexygal. Exegol. Gollum.exe 

Another bit I like in this part is when Rey holds the dagger up and finds the alignment she was looking for. Like she was always meant to do that. Fans who have their own daggers out for this trilogy might need to attempt some aligning of their own. A dagger is more than a weapon. But anyway, even in these MacGuffin-y plot details, I guess this is what JJ was on about when he said he wanted this film to have a strong sense of inevitability to it. Rey was somehow meant to go on this journey and end up here. Before people say this concept is merely some cop-out, they need to be more honest about other entertainments they accept with similar conceits and motifs. The Force Awakens. After six, seven, and eight movies, there's a more pervasive sense of characters being brought together by the Force, and the galaxy -- or their experience of it -- having become some kind of haunted house, or Indy-esque rune-driven quest. It's different for Star Wars, but I like it. 


I think Arch Duke will be pleased to hear that. We all let our passion get the better of us, at times.


I guess it's the way you worded it, but you made me think of Obi-Wan dealing the killing blow to the acklay in the arena, by plunging his saber down. Very much a sort of deliberate "finishing blow" from Obi and Rey -- as is performing a sacrificial cleansing. However, you've glommed onto some additional very profound stuff here, in the Rey-Kylo example.

I think I'm right to say that Obi-Wan also does a sort of backwards or side move with his saber, early on in the saga, when he's defending Qui-Gon from those Battle Droids on the TF ship, the first time we see Jedi going into action. There's a Battle Droid that comes in from the side, as Qui-Gon is trying to breach the sealed blast door, and Obi-Wan dispenses him with this cool little perpendicular saber gesture. But once again, you've hit on some deep material, here.


More great observations. I can't wait to watch all this (eventually) on Ben-Rey. Sorry, Blu-ray. Blu(e)-rey! 

I don't know if I'd quite say black and white with a blue tint. Maybe. I recall a lot of red laser fire in that mix. But you're right. There's an extraordinary helping of blue in this section of the film. It's close to monochrome. An eerily beautiful cyanotype cyclone:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanotype

And the "algae" picture supplied on the page above reminds me of Palpatine's lightning being conveyed into the space battle. It was really all the blue that I found striking in the trailers and the D23 preview reel. Intermixed, I guess, with those golden tones you just spoke of. Very intense, delectable imagery.

JJ certainly controlled his colour palettes brilliantly in TROS. I was trying to find JJ's comment about the palettes. I found this review instead:

www.bulletproofaction.com/2019/12/20/ryan-shoots-first-star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker/

What is all happening is stunningly enjoyable to watch. The color palettes and glamour shots are worth the price of admission and seeing so many new and old locations displayed so beautifully on screen just puts a smile on my face. The visuals for this era of Star Wars and this film specifically feel very much new-age Star Wars. You can feel the Filoni influence as the holocrons and temples all resemble the artifacts and temples we have seen in The Clone Wars and Rebels. I half expected Ashoka herself to be roaming around looking for Ezra.


You nailed it. But I'll ramble on anyway. Reading around on fan reactions to TROS, it seems I missed what they were doing in implying that Finn is Force-sensitive, and how he's now *aware* that he's Force-sensitive. That is supposedly the thing he's desperate to tell Rey when they're all sinking in the desert, only to then withhold the revelation for later. I guess he's embarrassed, and he doesn't want to burden Rey, or feel like her's diminishing her in some way. That's also what his conversation with Jannah is meant to be about. And you can read it into his tiff with Poe when Rey goes off and does her thing on the Death Star planet. Finn says something to Poe like, "You've got no idea what she's dealing with". I just took that as sympathy from a strong friend. But when Poe gets testy about, sarcastically asking Finn, "And you do?", there's one of those cinematically meaningful pauses, and Finn says back, "Yeah, I do." As soon as I realised that, it clicked into place. Finn's Force sensitivity is allegedly what also gives him those good instincts on Exegol in the battle, knowing about the transmitter and its weakness. In a way, this makes up for Finn having Luke's saber and being teased as a prospective Jedi in TFA. I hope we get another trilogy. Maybe they can re-introduce a few more of Lucas' scrapped/suspended ideas. These guys were only just starting to get interesting as characters in TROS. The last scene certainly implies a ton of adventures to come.

Han sold Luke's medal for drinking money? *googles it*

😆 Hey, everybody has bad days. Think about it though. If Luke wasn't sentimental about it enough to keep it (Jedi forbid attachments), why would Han? I bet he never heard the end of that. Maz calls him a bastard. 😂 In a kids' book. I guess this also explains where Kylo got the idea for his bullshit fabrication about Rey's parents. "Maybe if Rey hates her parents she'll join the darkside too."

Thanks, Alex.

On the Han/Luke medal thing:

Like stampid said, everyone has bad days, and it's easy to fall on hard times. TFA implies Han is up to his eyeballs in debt, with Rey "accidentally" helping him out when she releases the rathtars, which end up killing half the gang members that have come after Han. That said, some members clearly survive, and I wonder if they ever demand payment from someone else after Kylo kills Han instead? Also, while I'm okay with this idea, as shady as it is, I can only imagine the uproar if Lucas had done it instead of Disney.  

Look at This!
news.avclub.com/turns-out-colin-trevorrows-version-of-star-wars-episod-1841002112