Star Wars ep IX: The Rise Of Skywalker

[thecuriousorange]

The other theory is that he plays young Snoke in a flashback and Snoke was possessed by Palpatine the whole time.

[St_Eddie]

The other theory is that he plays young Snoke in a flashback and Snoke was possessed by Palpatine the whole time.

Hmm, interesting.  I wonder which shit idea they'll go with.

[mothman]

Even ignoring the Special Special Edition where he replaced Sebastian Shaw, I suspect if they ever have Anakin as a Force Ghost it'll be Haydn C. doing it (same for Ewan McG. as O-WK). So a Palpatine FG, well he might choose to de-age himself as well.

[St_Eddie]

Even ignoring the Special Special Edition where he replaced Sebastian Shaw, I suspect if they ever have Anakin as a Force Ghost it'll be Haydn C. doing it (same for Ewan McG. as O-WK). So a Palpatine FG, well he might choose to de-age himself as well.

Bloody force ghosts and their vanity.

[thecuriousorange]

This will be considered the worst Star Wars film ever, until they make another one that's even worse. People forget that it's been like that since Return of the Jedi. Imagine what they'll be making in 50 years.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Rey's just going to be kick-ass and invincibly brave and the big heroine who saves the day.  End of.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

So exactly what the manbabies wanted Luke to be in the previous film.

[St_Eddie]

So exactly what the manbabies wanted Luke to be in the previous film.

Way to miss the point.  I and others didn't want Luke Skywalker to be a Mary Sue like Rey.  We simply didn't agree that he would abandon all hope, his Sister and write off his nephew (much less come damn near close to murdering him in his sleep), given what we were shown in the original trilogy; a man who refused to give up hope for his Father (a man he hardly knew and a genocidal maniac).  It was completely out of character.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I never mentioned you.

[St_Eddie]

I never mentioned you.

Sorry, it's just that I'm one of the ones who doesn't like how Luke was handled in The Last Jedi and considers Rey to be the very definition of a Mary Sue.  That's usually criteria enough to be labeled as a "manbaby" when it comes to criticism of the sequel trilogy.  If I misinterpreted your comment, then fair enough.  I apologise.

However, I will say that Luke had years, nay decades of training and Rey goes from being a nobody to lifting a cluster of gigantic boulders by use of the force within the span of a couple of days, with virtually no training.  The two really aren't comparable, so it's not hypocritical for people to call for Luke to display great power of the force and for Rey to not display power of the force beyond anything that we've ever seen in the previous six movies.

[Replies From View]

Nose aside, there is a certain resemblance.  Perhaps he really is playing a young Palpatine.

Maybe he's playing an old one.

[Dr Rock]

Although Abrams TFA wasn't good, it could've been fixable with the next movie. It would be like WW2, a small faction taking on the might of the rest of the galaxy and actually getting somewhere. Luke has been studying to become the greatest Jedi ever, then must train Rey and they enter they both enter the fray. But with The First Order getting allies from other systems (like how the Japanese teamed up with Hitler, the dafties), it's not something Super-Luke and Rey-Sue could stop easily. All out galactic war! As opposed to a slow speed chase for a whole movie.

[Malcy]

Matt Smith & Dominic Monahan were announced as joining the cast on the Disney website but both have since been removed. Wonder who they are playing.

Never noticed the above discussion. Think Smith would make a good Palatine

[Glebe]

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, The Ultimate Preview.

Loads of new photos there, with Richard E. Grant and Keri Russell's characters revealed and the Knights of Ren and that... and what's up with that image of Luke and R2? Looks like a flashback to the destruction of the Jedi academy destruction.

[St_Eddie]

Another movie with Daisy Ridley's open mouthed acting.  Seriously, next time you watch one of her performances in these movies, look at her mouth; it's forever agape.  Once this has been pointed out, you'll never be able to stop noticing.  You're welcome.

Daniels also told me that C-3P0 does something in this movie that surprises everybody—but he wouldn't say what.

He wields Chewie's bowcaster.  No, really.  100% on the level.  I guarantee it.  This is a confirmed leak.

[Ferris]

Another movie with Daisy Ridley's open mouthed acting.  Seriously, next time you watch one of her performances in these movies, look at her mouth; it's forever agape.  Once this has been pointed out, you'll never be able to stop noticing.  You're welcome.

Here's another one - Arcade Fire using the word "kids" in songs despite being the wrong side of 40

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

However, I will say that Luke had years, nay decades of training and Rey goes from being a nobody to lifting a cluster of gigantic boulders by use of the force within the span of a couple of days, with virtually no training.  The two really aren't comparable, so it's not hypocritical for people to call for Luke to display great power of the force and for Rey to not display power of the force beyond anything that we've ever seen in the previous six movies.

Well except that Anakin Skywalker was the greatest pilot in the universe at 8 years old? And the whole point of Luke's story arc was that the Jedi had fallen into the obscurity of legend so he had to learn about all of their powers from Yoda whereas Rey lives in a world where the Jedi have already returned? (Note that this does not necessarily make logical sense given the relatively short actual chronology in the movies, but that was the original Luke plot)

I think "Mary Sue" has become a bit of a discrediting term at this point, regardless of the underlying argument.

[St_Eddie]

Well except that Anakin Skywalker was the greatest pilot in the universe at 8 years old?

I never claimed that the prequels were good.  They're not.  Much like the sequel trilogy, the prequels betrayed the original trilogy.

And the whole point of Luke's story arc was that the Jedi had fallen into the obscurity of legend so he had to learn about all of their powers from Yoda whereas Rey lives in a world where the Jedi have already returned? (Note that this does not necessarily make logical sense given the relatively short actual chronology in the movies, but that was the original Luke plot)

I'm sorry but quite frankly, this is apologist nonsense.  If that was the case, then the movie should have told the audience.  Don't write the movie for them.

I think "Mary Sue" has become a bit of a discrediting term at this point, regardless of the underlying argument.

Of course it's discrediting.  It's discrediting towards piss poor writing.

[greenman]

Both the sequels have looked to politicise themselves to avoid criticism, "Mary Sue" has become a term for "Female character I don't like" by alt right manbabies but prior to that it had a legitimate definition of some substance and I think Rey fits it almost exactly.

Anakin's competence as a child was one of the main plot criticisms of The Phantom Menace.

[St_Eddie]

Both the sequels have looked to politicise themselves to avoid criticism.

Haven't they just.  See also; the Ghostbusters remake.

Anakin's competence as a child was one of the main plot criticisms of The Phantom Menace.

Erik Kristopher Myers over at Ain't It Cool News has been writing an article relating to Star Wars every single day of the month (so as I type this, there are currently at 22 articles).  I highly recommend people head on over there and catch up on those articles because they're brilliant and on point (so far, at least).  If nothing else, it's worth having a look just to witness the novelty of well written articles over at AICN.  The article written on day 4, 'Lies I Told Because of Star Wars', is hilarious.  Anyway, I digress.  The reason why I mention this in reference to your post is because in day 16's article, 'Revenge of the Sith', Myers goes on a rant about how the prequels don't align with what was depicted and discussed in the original trilogy and once again, it's largely on point...

Now, I've already laid out my issues with the presentation of the Jedi order in my discussion of THE PHANTOM MENACE, but for those just now tuning in, I can sum it up with the following: as presented in the Original Trilogy, the Jedi had to have been a secret and widespread collective of errant space knights abiding by a general code, lurking in the shadows of planetary systems to emerge and disappear only when needed.  Yoda, too, had to have lived in secret on Dagobah, training each new recruit, one at a time, for centuries.  This was the only way for the Jedi existence to have fallen into dispute by the time that Han Solo was laughing off Luke's early training, despite the fact that the Jedi had participated in the fabled Clone Wars -- which, given Luke's young age of nineteen, clearly took place during Han's lifetime.  This isn't "head canon" – it's math.

So this brings us around to Anakin's age.  One of the most common complaints about THE PHANTOM MENACE was the introducing us to a nine year-old who clearly ought to have been closer to Obi-Wan's age.  Juvenile performance aside, the problem with starting Anakin off so young is that 1) by the time we catch up with him in ATTACK OF THE CLONES, ten years has passed, and he's become a brand new character we no longer know; and 2) he's significantly younger than the Anakin Skywalker we meet in RETURN OF THE JEDI.  Sabastian Shaw was nearly 80 (!) when he played the man beneath the helmet, and while some have tried to argue that casting a septuagenarian allowed for a Darth Vader who had been physically aged by the Dark Side, this still doesn't explain the healthy -- but elderly -- man we see as an apparition during the Ewok hoedown.

Because THE PHANTOM MENACE takes place thirty-two years before STAR WARS, and because Anakin is nine in that first Episode, this places Darth Vader at 41 when he first steps aboard the Tantive IV in search of the stolen Death Star plans.  Three more years pass between STAR WARS and EMPIRE, followed by six months between it and JEDI.  By the time he dies, Anakin Skywalker is a whopping 44 - 45 years old; just over half the age of the actor specifically chosen to play the unmasked (and spiritually renewed) version of the character.  Interestingly, Lucas opted to remove Shaw from the final moments of the Original Trilogy by pasting an outtake of Hayden Christensen's creepy, leering face over the previous actor's mug, prompting one to ask: if the goal was to smooth out some of these plot wrinkles (along with the facial ones), then how do we rationalize Kenobi still being an old man...?

(Speaking of which, it's also worth noting that this timeline creates issues for Obi-Wan as well.  If we accept that "old Ben" was between 65 and 70 when Luke meets him on Tatooine, this renders the character around thirty years old by the time Qui-Gon decided to let the trainee off the leash -- and then only because there was a new kid to be taught.  The Obi-Wan of EPISODE ONE never struck me as being intentionally played as that age until you examine the timeline.)

In short, with the Prequels making the Jedi public figures, and by portraying Vader as younger than expected (and Kenobi as older than expected), you end up with 1) characters who are incorrectly aged by as much as decades, and 2) the baffling mythologizing of a galactic peace-keeping order of space knights who led armies in a war that involved thousands of planetary systems...twenty years ago.  That's sort of like "forgetting" Christianity.

But okay, let's just roll with it.  Let's talk about Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader.  That's what this story's been all about, right?

I don't think anyone but the most militant Prequel apologist will correct me when I say that it's made clear in RETURN OF THE JEDI -- albeit through implication -- that Anakin was poorly trained by Obi-Wan, who chose not to send his Jedi recruit to Dagobah to learn the ways of the Force from Yoda.  One can extrapolate from there.  Without the isolation of a secluded environment, and with other events unfolding around them, Kenobi couldn't give Anakin the attention he needed.  Anakin found himself without guidance, and when caught up in the rush of his newfound abilities, he delighted in their use to resolve (or even instigate) situations involving conflict, be it of a physical, personal, or political nature.  Shortcuts and the rapid development of selfish, greedy power corrupted Skywalker, and made him easily recruited by Emperor Palpatine, who offered Anakin the chance to become his Muscle: a black ops commander with a badge, and a license to do whatever he wanted.  Knowing how to find the invisible Jedi scattered around the galaxy, the newly-dubbed Darth Vader sniffed each one back to their homes and slaughtered them.  Why did Yoda escape?  Because Vader didn't know Yoda existed.  His location had to be a secret passed to each new trainee who was sent off to become a Jedi.  Since Obi-Wan skipped this step and tried to train Anakin himself, he unwittingly created, through neglect, Darth Vader, who he accepted as his sole responsibility to destroy.  This confrontation ultimately played out atop a volcano, ending with Vader burnt nearly to death, and Kenobi in hiding, waiting for the day he could guide Luke to Dagobah and make amends for his pride and hubris.

Maybe the finer details differ, but that's more or less what we take away from the bits and pieces of backstory we're given in the Original Trilogy.  So how is that different from what we got?

The Anakin of the Prequels was never "seduced by the Dark Side of the Force"; he's conned by Palpatine after experiencing premonitions of Padme's imminent death during childbirth.  Palpatine offers to help him learn the secrets of immortality -- allegedly a Dark Side skill -- in return for Anakin's service.  Anakin agrees.  Then, about a day later, Obi-Wan chops off both his legs and leaves him on the side of a molten river.  Thus is Darth Vader born.

What we see in REVENGE OF THE SITH has nothing to do with what we'd been previously told.  Apart from some lip service jammed in every once in a while, Anakin never desires power, per se: he just wants to get laid.  He wants to have a girlfriend and pouts when he can't.  He gets butthurt when he's placed on the Jedi council without the rank of Master (despite the kid he kills an hour later calling him "Master Skywalker" before being saber'd to death).  It's all just petty bitchiness from a petty, bitchy kid.  No nobility, no wisdom or goodness that's tragically and irrevocably lost.  Seduction isn't an immediate thing, you know: there's a luring, cat-and-mouse quality that never occurs here.  One can always unpack the old "from a certain point of view" excuse, but the Darth Vaders of the Original and Prequel trilogies have nothing in common beyond the name.  Hell, even his title loses relevancy: rather than being specific to Anakin himself (a bastardization of "Dark Father"), it turns out that "Darth" is a generic name, like calling every Sith Lord "Mister" in front of a variation of "Bad Guy."

Much of this inconsistency -- and indeed the abruptness of Anakin's turn -- comes back to my previous discussion of writing in the editing room.  By his own admission, Lucas banged out the screenplays for ATTACK OF THE CLONES and REVENGE OF THE SITH literally days before filming began, and then contractually obligated his cast and crew to return for multiple reshoots so that he could "find" the story as he assembled footage and saw what worked and what didn't.  Anakin's conversion to the Dark Side was a prime example of this method, originally involving the erroneous belief that the Jedi were trying to overthrow the Republic.  When Lucas screened the film for his colleagues, they found this to be wimpy, resulting in the "dying in childbirth" angle.  You can literally see the seams in the two edits during Palpatine's knighting of Anakin: the pupil is panting and sobbing "What have I done?" over having just killed Mace Windu, followed by him begging Palpatine to help him save Padme's life; then, a moment later, he's cool, cold, and dispassionate, agreeing -- for no reason at all -- to go to the Jedi temple to murder children.  This continuity shift creates weird moments in the third act as Vader repeats that "the Jedi are evil" and other such First Draft elements that no longer harmonize with the rewrite.

Either way you cut it, the Anakin we see in REVENGE OF THE SITH is killing preschoolers because either 1) he was misinformed that the Jedi were acting outside the law, or 2) he believed his wife was going to die.  In neither case is he "seduced" by power, and in neither case should he suddenly become a sociopathic Space Hitler.  We don't even see him "hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights"; the clones do that.  Anakin just kills defenseless kids.  He isn't a good man corrupted by power; he's a fucking punk.  Darth Vader, as depicted in the Original Trilogy, carries an air of failed nobility.  This must first be obtained in order to be lost.

Finally, there becomes the issue of family.  The RETURN OF THE JEDI screenplay contains a scene that was filmed and then deleted in which Obi-Wan explains that Owen Lars was his brother, not Anakin's; this was why hiding Luke with "family" (who, not coincidentally, had a last name that wasn't "Skywalker") made sense.  Regrettably, this dialogue was removed, creating the troublesome question of why Obi-Wan would leave Anakin's son -- the future "new hope" of the galaxy -- with Anakin's own family, on a farm that Anakin knew the location of, on Anakin's home planet.  The fact that Luke is hidden in the most obvious place imaginable makes Vader look stupid, and Obi-Wan even stupider than that.

Not long after the release of THE FORCE AWAKENS, several friends tagged me in a Facebook article making the claim that Kylo Ren was the Anakin Skywalker we should have gotten: young, powerful, troubled, and relatable.  Kylo Ren is a topic for another day; but my reply to this theory was a simple No no no no NO.  The Anakin we should have gotten was played by Sean Bean in THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING.  Consider Boromir: a kind and noble man, peerless in battle and lordly in bearing, confronted by a threat to all he holds dear, and cannot vanquish; and then, ultimate Power comes within reach -- a Power he has sworn to reject.  It gnaws at him.  These are End Times.  War is coming.  Mankind will fall.  The Power calls to him, knowing the weak spot in his armor: his pride.  So he betrays his vow and tries to kill an innocent to seize that Power for himself.  He's a good man doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, and in the end, he pays the price for his lack of vision.  That was the Anakin we should have gotten.

The truth is, we still haven't met the character we all heard about in Ben's hut back in 1977.  He remains as mysterious and legendary as he was when Obi-Wan first teased us with clues, inspiring us all to imagine what really happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

[phantom_power]

He wields Chewie's bowcaster.  No, really.  100% on the level.  I guarantee it.  This is a confirmed leak.

Well don't fucking post it here without spoiler tags then

[St_Eddie]

Well don't fucking post it here without spoiler tags then

It's on the theatrical poster, as you'll see when they officially unveil it.  Don't blame me, blame Disney.

Link for those who don't mind spoiling the poster ahead of time.

[St_Eddie]

A fascinating convention Q&A with Mark Hamill, producer Gary Kurtz and marketing director Charles Lippincott... from 1976, a year before the release of the first movie!  What a remarkable snapshot in time.

[greenman]

That does go back to a couple of fundamental problems many had with the prequels, Anakin being introduced at too young an age and the Jedi shifting from mysterious sages to an official police force and/or generals in an army.

I'd agree with him about Anakin as well, somehow Lucas managed to botch the fall of a character who didn't have very far to fall never having been very heroic or likeble.

Honestly besides a lack of ability to me it seems like a fundamental problem with the prequels and the sequels is those involved didn't care that much about the originals. Lucas by that point seemed more interested in the technical side of the business, Abrams more interesting in mining cheap nostalgia as he has in Trek and Johnson of making ham fisted "confounding of expectations" plots that had already been delt with far better in the originals. Again Rogue One to me feels like the only Star wars film made since the originals by someone who has much love/respect for them and ends up by far the best film in the franchise since them IMHO.

[St_Eddie]

Honestly besides a lack of ability to me it seems like a fundamental problem with the prequels and the sequels is those involved didn't care that much about the originals. Lucas by that point seemed more interested in the technical side of the business

There's a great interview with Gary Kurtz here, where he debunks a lot of the mythology which surrounds Star Wars and George Lucas.

Abrams more interesting in mining cheap nostalgia as he has in Trek and Johnson of making ham fisted "confounding of expectations" plots that had already been delt with far better in the originals. Again Rogue One to me feels like the only Star wars film made since the originals by someone who has much love/respect for them and ends up by far the best film in the franchise since them IMHO.

I agree with all of this, except for the praise towards Rogue One.  I hate that movie.  I find it to be dull, soulless and lifeless.  Speaking of soulless and lifeless; that Peter Cushing facsimile is a fucking disgrace.

[Dr Rock]

I don't like the prequels so in my head-canon I see them as an account of roughly what happened but told by someone who wasn't there and got a bunch of things wrong. The way Palpatine rose to power and became the Emperor, that's fine by me so that roughly happened. The story of Anakin is as accurate as someone who saw the first two Omen movies thirty years ago and gets them mixed up with The Wonder Years.

[St_Eddie]

I don't like the prequels so in my head-canon I see them as an account of roughly what happened but told by someone who wasn't there and got a bunch of things wrong. The way Palpatine rose to power and became the Emperor, that's fine by me so that roughly happened. The story of Anakin is as accurate as someone who saw the first two Omen movies thirty years ago and gets them mixed up with The Wonder Years.

I do the exact same thing with a few sequels/prequels which shit the bed; in my head, the broad strokes are correct but the finer details are wrong and being told by an unreliable narrator.

[Huxleys Babkins]

and what's up with that image of Luke and R2? Looks like a flashback to the destruction of the Jedi academy destruction.

I'm not sure about that. Luke was all smart dark hair and beard in the flashbacks we saw in TLJ.

I reckon they just thought that the Force ghost effect looked a bit silly in an out-of-context promotional still so omitted it.

[St_Eddie]

I'm not sure about that. Luke was all smart dark hair and beard in the flashbacks we saw in TLJ.

I reckon they just thought that the Force ghost effect looked a bit silly in an out-of-context promotional still so omitted it.

Actually, I suspect that is a flashback to the burning of Luke's Jedi academy.  In the photo in question, Luke's robes appear to be physically interacting with R2-D2.  As for the discrepancy between Luke's appearance in The Last Jedi flashback and the possible flashback in The Rise of Skywalker, it's not as though the sequel trilogy is adverse to fucking with the continuity of the previous movie...

Snoke's changing face.



Kylo Ren's position changing scar.



Rey's position changing wound.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Perhaps. But as another counter-point, the projection of Luke that faced Kylo Ren in TLJ was also of his younger self. This suggests that was his appearance the last time Kylo saw him, aka, when the temple was burned and he ran away.