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Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker


Jinjo

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This film man...oh boy. I just don't know. Review below:

Spoiler

The Good:

  • As usual, you can never go wrong with John Williams’ music, even if it’s basically the equivalent of “music in Sonic games will always be good” at this point.
  • The acting is great for what the actors have to work with. I’d say this movie is Daisy’s best performance of the three, it’s a shame she didn't have better material to work with.
  • Speaking of, I did enjoy Rey and Kylo's dynamic here again as usual. I liked how Kylo didn’t become Sheev’s bitch like I initially feared and clearly had his own agenda. The force Skype bond is the one TLJ feature they did carry over and I’m glad they did keep that at least. Them being a Force Dyad was a new unique concept that I wish had been elaborated on a bit more.
  • Leia’s usage was as good as it could’ve been, even if awkward in a few places. It wasn’t incorporated perfectly, but given the tragic circumstances behind it that were out of JJ and gang’s control, I think he did the best he could with a bad situation. I honestly almost teared up at Leia’s death scene, which was one of the strongest parts of the movie for me, and one of the only few ones that got an actual emotional response from me.
  • The Kylo and Han scene, which was a fantastic mirror to the Force Awakens. It does make me wish Ben had lived but I thought it was a nice ending to his relationship with his family for what it was.
  • Rey talking with Luke, along with the accompanying Luke and Leia flashback scene. I was honestly content with Luke’s ending here (even though him lifting the X-wing, while I suspended my disbelief for, does add a plot hole to TLJ, but shh, don't tell JJ that). 
  • For as little screentime as he had, Pryde was an interesting villain, and the only new character in this film I gave a shit about in the slightest. If this film had more time to flesh itself out, he could’ve given off serious Cutler Beckett vibes.
  • Exegol was a great location that I wish we got to explore more of. The vague pieces of lore we did get were great, and the Sith Eternal cultists looked interesting. I also really loved the scene where the cultists were cheering on Rey during the Sith ritual, it was one of the only few times in the movie where I felt genuine tension. If you want to know more about the Sith Eternal and how Palpatine returned, you’ll have to wait for the inevitable DLC books/comics, sorry!
  • While I have many issues with how his return was handled, Ian McDiarmid is always a treat to see and I’m glad he still has it in him to put on a hell of a performance as Palpatine. Him essentially being an undead zombie was something new and actually interesting. On that note, my boy Sheev referencing memes like “The dark side of the force is a pathway to abilities some would consider to be unnatural” and "Dew it” (thanks kev) were nice touches of fanservice that actually didn’t bug me for once.
  • Even though her character ended up being extraneous, Jannah and Finn's conversation about deserting was great. It was one of the only times in the film to give a nice quieter character building moment, and actually did something for Finn’s character, who unfortunately got the short end of the stick again.
  • The scene where Sheev shoots lightning at all of the ships was fantastic and beautiful, really gave me vibes from the end of Deathly Hallows Part 1.
  • It might not be a top ten lightsaber fight, but I did enjoy Rey and Kylo’s fight on the Death Star 2 wreckage while it lasted.
  • While I’m not a fan of the Reylo kiss, I’m okay with how Kylo’s story ended. Still wish he would’ve lived, but it is what it is.
  • The ending was sweet, even if revisiting Tatooine and the binary sunset was one of the most obvious fan pandering things ever, but it does make sense thematically so I can forgive it. I can appreciate the sentiment.
  • Rey hearing the voices of Jedi past was nice, though I wish they had been actual ghosts. As a cartoon fan, it was cool to see Ahsoka and Kanan be acknowledged.

The Indifferent:

  • Hux being a turncoat. On one hand, this kinda goes against his characterization and fuming hatred of the New Republic established in the new canon (implying JJ actually cares about the books). It’s pretty petty and stupid even for him, hateboner for Kylo aside. On the other hand…I honestly don’t care. Truth be told, I never cared much for Hux to begin with. People constantly feel his character was ruined in The Last Jedi, but I never thought he was particularly interesting even in The Force Awakens. Outside of the admittedly cool speech, his character had nothing else going for me, and I didn’t mind seeing him knocked down a peg in TLJ. His plot here reeks of them not knowing what to do with his character anymore. It’s hard to be invested in the “twist” reveal given he only leaked literally one piece of information to the Resistance. That’s it. It ended up being another extraneous plot that could’ve been removed entirely from the movie. When Pryde shot him like a punk bitch, I literally felt nothing. Whatever.
  • The Knights of Ren were as useless as I anticipated them to be, if not more so. You could’ve literally swapped them with any basic Stormtrooper, or y’know, the Sith Troopers (which the film kinda forgot existed). This technically could belong under the negatives section, but to be fair, I literally expected them to be red shirts for ages, so for me personally, I can’t say I was disappointed or annoyed with how they were handled.
  • Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter. When I first read the leaks several months ago, I honestly fucking hated this twist. I really did. I liked "Rey Nobody" and was annoyed to see JJ going back on it. After seeing it in execution however…I’ve slightly warmed up to the idea of it. I’m still not a big fan of it, it is very fanfiction-y, and it does undo TLJ’s reveal to appease people still angry she wasn’t a Skywalker or Kenobi, but I’m not mad at it. Maybe it’s because I had time to accept it prior, but the basic idea of it does have potential. The dynamic with Rey and Sheev at the end was actually interesting and if they had more time, could’ve been even better in execution. I also don’t think it’s that outlandish, though I understand why some will think so at first glance. Although Sheev having sex isn’t particularly a visual I want to partake in, him having offspring isn’t too inconceivable to believe and can work in the timeline (unlike Rey Kenobi). That all being said though, yeah, it is pretty much an ass pull in this movie and the result of what happens when you don’t have a proper plan for the trilogy in advance. If this had been built up and foreshadowed from the start instead of being shoved into the last movie, it could've worked out a lot better. There was potential there for this twist to work. But hey, now it's given us another mystery box to ponder over: Who did Sheev nut in? Have fun speculating.
  • While I did like pieces of it, the constant fan service in general on all fronts got somewhat annoying after a while and in the end, left me feeling nothing. Within this movie JJ tries to please: ST lovers, ST haters, OT fans, prequel fans, Reylo shippers, and the film collapses in on itself due to this. JJ tried to make the film he thought would please all houses and sectors of the Star Wars fandom (which, spoiler alert, is impossible!) instead of the film he wanted to make. Lucas at least stuck to his guns during the prequel backlash for the most part (though I am curious with every passing day about Darth Jar Jar). It’s why this film feels like it has no identity overall. Even Lando, as much as it was nice to see him on screen again, felt…pointless. There needs to be some identity behind the fanservice, even TFA got its fanservice right despite its issues. Chewie getting his medal might be funny for one viewing, but will make me roll my eyes in the future. I did almost put this in negatives because the film's identity crisis is a big problem, but I did admittedly like some parts of the fanservice, and I became so desensitized to all the fan wanking that in the end I went “eh”, so it got moved into the middle.

The Bad:

  • My biggest problem, which many have complained about, and I have to concur with on unfortunately: the pacing was AWFUL. Holy fucking shit, it was atrocious. There was no breathing room for anything. The first act genuinely felt like I was watching a music video instead of a movie. It got so egregious I began waiting for Eminem to start rapping over it because it was that jarring and badly paced. I’ve seen many jokes online about how the first two acts felt like a video game, and those are shockingly accurate given the unnecessary fetch quests and how unfinished this movie feels. You could’ve helped pacing a lot in this film by just simply removing the entire Kijimi section, seriously. C3PO’s memory wipe amounted to nothing, and they didn’t even need the Sith Dagger to find Exegol in the end, so what a real nice use of time. When Kijimi got nuked, I smirked because it proved me right at how pointless it was. They really need more downtime for breathing and quieter character moments, especially between the main trio. The pacing got a little better by the third act but by then the damage was done. I’m going to have a tough time revisiting this movie due to the hyper speed pacing of the first two acts. It hasn’t even been 24 hours and I feel like I’ve already forgotten the basic structure of the first two acts because of how much crap got thrown at us in so little time. Regardless of if you like this film or not, you cannot deny the pacing absolutely needed fine tuning.
  • My second biggest problem: There were honestly too many damn characters, and because of the above pacing problems, there was no balanced screen time for any of them. Not helped by all the new characters that get dumped on us in this movie, who waste time on giving actual closures to our main cast. Zorri, Jannah (who was apparently possibly Lando’s long lost daughter in the initial leaked synopsis, strange to cut that), Charlie from Lost (whose character I can’t be bothered to google), Babu Frik, the Knights of Ren, and Boolio all felt like needless padding that could’ve been cut entirely from the film. Especially since that time could’ve gone to actually giving us satisfying endings to the already existing ST characters, which this film didn't do very well. This is the last film of the trilogy, it's too late to throw all these new people at us.
  • My third biggest issue is how low the stakes felt, at least for me personally. Palpatine is back! And…the film doesn’t really make a huge deal of this??? His return is pretty much glossed over in a heartbeat by both Kylo and the Resistance thanks to the breakneck pacing. I don’t know what the hell JJ was smoking to make Palpatine's radio broadcast a Fortnite exclusive (lmao). Putting that in the film would’ve added some genuine tension. When Finn, Poe and Chewie were mowing down an entire hallway of Stormtroopers, I asked to myself: “How is the Final Order anymore threatening than the Empire again?” Even during the final battle, the stakes didn’t feel as high as they should’ve been. The big calvary at the end was composed of faceless nobodies so it was hard to feel much excitement.
  • The multitudes of “gotcha!” fakeout deaths were irritating and cheap attempts at shock value. Palpatine (technically), Chewie, C3PO’s memory wipe, Rey, Kylo (twice), Zorri, and Babu Frik. It seriously got old fast, and added to why I wasn’t feeling the stakes at all. Chewie’s fakeout death may have gotten a better response out of me if it wasn’t for the fact we see him alive ten seconds later thanks to the hyper-speed pacing. I guess JJ finally evolved on from mystery boxes as his fetish and now has a thing for fakeout deaths.
  • Finn and Poe pretty much have no actual character arcs or closure. It’s why this film feels incomplete in some areas, and why it’s kinda obvious JJ was crunched for time. Poe honestly pissed me off at times with his constant bickering and attitude, showing he learned nothing at all from TLJ. I really was not feeling the chemistry between Rey, Finn and Poe here in general, it’s sad.
  • The constant retconning and “fixes” of The Last Jedi’s controversial elements started to really piss me off after a while. Rey being a Palpatine, the wink wink to explain Holdo’s maneuver, the half-baked Snoke explanation, Poe learning nothing at all, Kylo’s helmet coming back (which was never explained btw), Luke saying Rey shouldn’t throw away a lightsaber, etc. Say what you will about TLJ, but when you have another director essentially overwriting it, that’s not a good look and shows how poorly planned this trilogy was. I'm not even sure if this is all entirely JJ trying to please the people angered by TLJ (though it certainly sure comes off like that), because given how the third act goes, it's clear JJ dug up the old Return of the Jedi in HD ending he had in mind from 2014, but it was incompatible with TLJ's decisions since he was low on time. At the end of the day, all these TLJ "fixes" did was further add to the rushed pacing and identity crisis.
  • Rey’s “And I…I’m all of the Jedi” line actually made me cringe a little. I was watching this movie with a group so needless to say I felt a bit embarrassed. It was so obviously an attempt at Endgame it wasn't even funny.
  • This film has a ton of plot holes. How is Palpatine back? Literally no concrete explanation beyond vague implications. As cool as the opera scene reference was, it answers nothing. I could literally make myself immortal and when someone asked me how I’m doing that, I’d respond with “The dark side of the force is a pathway to abilities some would consider to be natural”, and it’d be as satisfying of an explanation as what we got here. It's pretty blatantly obvious his return wasn't planned. In fact, Palpatine’s entire plan makes no sense at all. Let me try to break this down: he had a satanic resurrection performed on him, waited 31 years with a secret Sith fleet (which is ridiculous and straight out of the old EU), dispatched an assassin to hunt Rey down, but that failed, so he has Snoke created to run the FO, but weirdly Snoke wants to kill Rey at one point which goes against his master plan, then Snoke dies, Kylo finds Palpatine, he asks Kylo try to kill Rey, but that goes against his plan because he wanted Rey to rule the Sith (you know, turning her into another Anakin, manipulation is his thing), so him telling Kylo to kill her was pointless, but that was also all pointless because I think he only wanted them together to get his life back anyways (or was that Plan B if she refused? and if that was Plan B, his priorities are clearly not straight), so I don’t understand why he even bothered with all this overly complicated path when he could’ve simply asked Kylo to bring Rey to her, not kill her. He was even annoyed that Leia interrupted their Death Star 2 fight, so um, what gives? Maybe I missed something in the haphazard pacing, so forgive me. Either way, his entire plan is convoluted as hell and when you try to even think about it your head is gonna spin. While I’m busting balls, I'll also add the way the Sith fleet was defeated baffles me. All it takes to disarm the whole fleet is destroying one tower signal, and then suddenly, the signal can be transferred to one ship. Destroy that ship and the entire fleet goes boom. That’s…kind of stupid, especially on Sheev’s part. Also, there’s a problem with even that, because we clearly saw several destroyers left Exegol, such as the one that blew up Kijimi. Why did Sheev keep the rest of the fleet at Exegol? How did the other ships that weren’t on Exegol all miraculously explode (at least you can justify them all exploding on Exegol due to close proximity)? I can suspend my disbelief when it comes to strange things in Star Wars, and I’m not one to get annoyed by its logic, but here it felt like they honestly got lazy and ran out of time.

Overall, despite what it sounds, I did have fun with this movie, but it was undeniably a mess. "Clusterfuck" is the perfect descriptor. It's not irredeemably awful, and it is still better than Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, but I unfortunately do think this was the worst of the sequel trilogy. It clearly needed a lot more time in the oven. I really wanted to like this, I did, but after leaving the theater, I felt kind of empty inside, which is sad for the big "ending". I genuinely struggled to list stuff I actually liked in this movie beyond my initial list. I'm not mad, only left baffled by many choices in this and feeling somewhat unsatisfied. I at least have Mandalorian and TCW S7 to look forward to so this does soften the blow. I think we can all agree it's for the best they're taking a movie break.

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Spoiler

 

There was just few things i have to say about this film. I do love this film, but there some issues I had with. First of all, i just don't like the way the pacing went too fast for me it get me confused on what's going on. Secondly, theere was like lot of new characters i didn't know which we don't get too much about it. Finally,  i hate these fakeout deaths just please stop this. it almost made me  cried during the dessert scene.

Althiugh, I'm ok with Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter, but i'm kind of mixed on that reveal.

However, there are some scenes that  liked the most. The Rey vs Kylo fight sequence was fantastic which I loved everything about it. Kylo and Hans scene was also nice part too. it's nice seeing Ford in this film, and the ending was very sweet as well.Overall, this was great way end the squeal trilogy despite the problem I have. who know who'll be new jedi in next Star Wars trilogy.

 

 

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It sure was a movie alright.

To give context, I actually have been pretty open to these Disney Star Wars films, I thought The Force Awakens, in spite of its lack of new ideas, was a good movie, and I genuinely loved The Last Jedi. So going into this I had an open mind, I wanted to like this movie, I really did.

I say this so that when I saw this was probably my least-favorite Star Wars movie, I don't come off as someone who wanted to hate this movie like people such as MauLer and the like. Although hate is a strong word, I didn't hate this movie, I just didn't care. I kinda wish I did hate this movie, at least then I would've felt something.

Spoiler

To begin this movie might have some of the worst pacing and editing I've ever seen in a film. The first act especially just keeps throwing so much shit at the wall to the point that nothing has any weight to it. The  moment I started to get extremely worried about this film was the first scene in Exogol, this is the scene where we find out that, The Emperor, the most evil man in the galaxy, is still alive. You think there'd be some gravity to the  situation, that the film might slow down a bit so that the audience can soak in just how massive the stakes are, but nope, the scene just moves along at the same pace as every other scene in the movie. The introduction with Palpatine is treated more like Kylo Ren accepting an NPC sidequest than anything actually major. It seems like J. J. Abrams read one too many Reddit posts complaining about how Rey swimming was not properly explained in The Last Jedi, so he purposefully included superfluous scenes that explain how the Resistance got their leaked information and how Kylo Ren got his wayfinder, just adding to a completely chaotic beginning that has no focus. It's about as bad as the original cut of the New Hope where they cut the Empire's attack on the Rebel Ship with  Luke's shenanigans on Tatooine. This ties into a wider problem that The Rise of Skywalker has a ton of bone but almost no meat, the film just has so much going on that we have almost no quiet or character-driven moments. A big standout example of this is Lando's introduction, for the reintroduction of a beloved character you'd think it'd amount to more than a blink or you miss it exposition dump, but that's about all it can amount to cuz the film is so obsessed with jumping to scene to scene in an only 140 minute timespan. In this way the film was actually worse in execution than it was in the leaks, that's the power of editing I guess.

I think what I hated most about this movie though was how... soulless it felt? It's kind of difficult to explain but every Star Wars movie has made me feel something before, sometimes it was positive, sometimes it was negative. But this film just made me feel dead on the inside, which is honestly worse than feeling negatively. TROS feels like it was created by robots rather than actual human beings, nobody has an arc except Rey and Kylo Ren. Rey's arc is basically the same as The Last Jedi's except for that she has a bloodline now to appease angry fan theorists and Kylo's is a repeat of Vader's in Return of the Jedi. Finn is just along for the ride I guess. I suppose him being force sensitive is what J.J. would consider his "arc" but it never amounts to anything in the film. Poe seems to have learned nothing from The Last Jedi, it seemed pretty obvious that movie was setting him up to be a wiser leader, but in this he's more cocky and obnoxious than ever here. His first action is a "lightspeed skip" which, while a cool sequence in a vacuum, is a very poor way of conveying you've learned to be less arrogant since last time. Beyond the characters we already know, this film introduces another billion characters that you could lose track of, Jannah, Zorri Bliss, D-O, The Knights of Ren, Sith Troopers, Babu Frik, General Pryde... there's probably another one in there somewhere, there's so many of them. But besides the characters, what was this trilogy trying to say? What was its meaning to the Star Wars saga? Now that we got all 3 movies, we know the answer is absolutely nothing. It seemed like Johnson was trying to set up something to give this trilogy a purpose, but J. J. Abrams basically gave us Return of the Jedi 2.0. The film ends on the exact same place Return of the Jedi ended, the super-duper weapon was blown up, Palpatine's deader, and we don't know what will arise from the power vacuum, but knowing J. J. Abrams it's probably the newer Republic. I'll admit that from a film making perspective TROS is probably a bit better than TPM and AOTC, but I think what makes me personally like TROS less is that for all the stupid shit TPM and AOTC had, I still felt like they added something to the Star Wars universe, they were bad movies, but bad movies with meaning. The only meaning TROS is that it's Return of the Jedi except more explosiony.

I think what ticked me off the most were the constant wink wink nudge nudges to haters of The Last Jedi. The amount of subtle jabs and retcons of that movie irritated me to no end. Love or hate that movie, it's canon and part of this trilogy, making an entire third of a trilogy meaningless is just bad storytelling and the mature thing would've been to stick with that movie and press onward to try to deliver a cohesive vision of a new Star Wars trilogy. Instead they seemed to capitulate to the worst segments of the fandom.

1.) Rey is no longer a nobody, she is the granddaughter of Sheev. Rey becoming a badass Jedi despite growing up with harsh circumstances with deadbeat parents? Nay, she's strong with the force because she's got genes.
2.) Ben symbolically destroying his helmet to symbolize his character development? Actually it looked cool so it's back now.
3.) Snoke is a clone I guess, idk wtf this means and neither does J. J. Abrams, it raises more questions than answers but at least we got the backstory that Ruin Johnson robbed us of!
4.) Sorry Rose, YouTube essayists didn't like you so despite being a main character in the last one you get like 3 lines now.
5.) There's a very necessary line mentioning the Holdo maneuver and why they can't do it again.
6.) Luke's line about the lightsaber. Remember the Luke in the last movie that dared to be mildly complex? Don't worry! He's an e?️ic badass now!

Also, I'm not one to complain about freaking Star Wars not making sense. But unlike dumb complaints like "Dae bombs in space reeeeeee!" there are some actual serious plotholes in this film that impact character motivations and the entire conflict of the film. Sheev's plan makes no sense at all when observed with the slightest scrutiny, and why does his massive fleet has such a stupid weakness?

Overall The Rise of Skywalker is exactly what happens when you try to please fans without any vision of your own, every millisecond the movie is trying to win over anyone afraid of risk in this franchise and hearkens back to imagery of old, whether it be the binary sunset, Lando, the Jedi voices etc. And in the end, it just creates a situation where the entire trilogy feels like a meaningless retread of the original trilogy, except without the creativity and soul. It sucks because I was pretty happy with this trilogy until this film, but it is what it is I guess.

 

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I feel like jjs and slug said the best, so I don't have much to say about this movie other than it being absolutely mediocre and a big let down after how much I enjoyed first two sequels, despite their flaws. I still had some fun in it but story, pacing, characterizations and how it was made, everything felt poor, except action scenes and visuals.

also 

Spoiler

fuck Reylo. Fuck that disgusting ship.

 

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As someone who loved both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi and didn't pay attention to any of the leaks, even after the negative reception I was expecting to like this movie. I... was wrong. jjs said it better than I could and I agree with most of what he said so I'll save my long rant. I did like it better than all the prequels, but it inspired even less feeling than they did. Obviously the Star Wars movies have always been made to make (lots of) money, but this is the most it's ever felt like a product off an assembly line. And not a good one. But I do have one thing I want to touch on

 

Not to be That Guy but I found the way they handled Finn and Poe's relationship honestly a little insulting. To be clear, I NEVER thought Finn/Poe as a romantic relationship was going to happen and I'm fine with that. But the additions of Jannah and Zorii just felt like J.J. Abrams grabbing me by the shoulders and yelling "LOOK HOW STRAIGHT FINN AND POE ARE!!!" in my face. And this isn't about them having female love interests, if Finn had ended up with Rey or Rose that would be fine. But no, instead Rose had to be sidelined the whole movie and got a weird friend-zoning shoulder pat because J.J. didn't want to play with Rian Johnson's toys. I don't even know if I'm making sense, but neither of them had a damn character arc in this movie anyway so what was the point of this??

Basically what I'm saying is thank you Oscar Isaac

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Unpopular opinion time!

This is HARDLY the first time that the writers of "Star Wars" decided to RETCON a relationship WHILE they were still WRITING a trilogy! It happened as EARLY as the ORIGINAL trilogy! Darth Vader wasn't even originally PLANNED to be Anakin Skywalker, or Luke and Leia's father in the FIRST place! It's only SHEER luck they were able to make THAT plot twist work the way they did! So the fact that Rey is Palpatine's Grand-daughter is simply par for the course, for the space soap opera that has been "Star Wars"! And Palpatine's strategy, is a complicated version of a "Xanatos Gambit", where you plan for many different outcomes, for many different situations, with the overall goal in mind that no matter what happens, you WIN in the end! Except that Palpatine DIDN'T count for Rey channeling all the Jedi of the past, the way HE was channeling all of the Sith! And, inevitably, Carrie Fisher's performance was HARD to watch, but J.J. Abrams certainly did the best with the footage that he had, and made it work as well as he could. I REALLY hope Carrie Fisher gets an Oscar nomination at the VERY least! And this is HARDLY the first time the Empire has had such a STUPID weakness! The FIRST Death Star with a small Thermal Exhaust Port only two meters wide, the Second Death Star you could actually FLY through once you deactivated the Force Shield, and StarKiller Base, by damaging the ATTACK mechanism, it caused the planet to self-destruct on itself! I wish they had done more with Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissien, but at least he got to be a hero, again! And I'm probably in the minority here, but I genuinely liked THIS movie far MORE than "The Last Jedi!"

That's all I wanted to say. RIP Mainline "Star Wars" franchise movies 1977-2019, your contributions to cinematic movies will NEVER be forgotten.

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let’s pretend there’s a university. there’s three history courses. all of them are about the American Revolution. 

the first one, HIST 2015, is basically a brighter version of Hamilton, one that plays up the strengths of the American experiment. Taught by the bright-eyed, eccentric, and talented (if mildly derivative) Professor Abrams, it hits all the positive hallmarks, calls back to names all the students know, and even introduces a few new ones. It’s not challenging, it’s familiar, and it’s basically just AP US History again, but hey, Abrams is fun and it works, even if sometimes it gets a bit too celebratory for its own good. Everyone leaves the course pretty satisfied. 

but HIST 2017 is different. The head of this class, Professor Johnson, has a wildly radical approach to his subject matter. Instead of going on and on about the wonders of the American experiment, he asks questions about the ethics and morals of it. Like, hey, didn’t these founding fathers own slaves? Isn’t this country built on the backs of those slaves? Built on a legacy of systematic slaughter and bloodshed? Is this a legacy even worth upholding? 

It’s a depressing re-evaluation of the American history, but it’s not inaccurate by any means. However, even though Professor Johnson looks at America without the rose-tinted glasses (wink!), he takes great pride and joy in what America represents and what it can be. Most of his class focuses on the American Revolutionary leaders and their friends, a group of scrappy rebels who came from nothing and banded together in the face of adversity, not tied to any legacy before them, only dedicated towards the one ahead. It’s a rejection of nearly everything the kids have been taught about America before, but in a lot of ways, an embracing of what it can be. Johnson’s belief that anyone can be important in this story pumps through the class and makes it feel alive and unique. It’s flawed structurally in a couple ways, and gets away with asking a lot of questions it doesn’t have to answer, but in that, it’s almost beautiful.

Students loved HIST 2017. They got a lot out of it, too - new world views, more empathetic outlooks on cultures, the works. But when they come back home for the holidays to their families, the parents don’t like it. Not one bit. And they react viciously. Cries of “That’s not the America I remember! Not MY America!” pepper dinner time arguments all over the country. HIST 2017 is so divisive that it sends the University into a frenzy as it gets bogged down with complaints from angry, conservative parents afraid of change.

So the university decides to make a new course. HIST 2019.

HIST 2019 is... Also different. The university didn’t have a lot of time to develop the course. A professor who specialized in history about the Jurassic period was supposed to teach it, but the university decided in the end to go with Professor Abrams again. And to be fair, it’s a tough position to be in for sure - with all the audiences he has to appease, and the University’s reputation hanging in the balance, this is easily the most important class he’s ever taught. In his crunch for time, he looks over Professor Johnson’s course and sees that it’s basically undone everything his original course set up. And in a moment of self-reflection, he stops and thinks about what that means. He asks whether the America that Johnson sees and the America he sees can be reconciled, completely oblivious to the fact that they’re the same America. And he decides that they can’t coexist - not in a coherent way, at least. 

So he decides to walk it all back. 

This team of rebels that everyone cared about so deeply? He makes sure to reinforce their place as mere cogs in the machine of the legacy that everything in America is in service to. He takes what his and Johnson’s class were building to, a way to undo the sins of the father by first reinforcing what America is and then deconstructing it, and bastardizes it. He ends up walking back some of Johnson’s positions so hard that he actually ends up reinforcing problematic elements of America that even his original class didn’t. The limited time he had to prepare the class gives the entire thing a rushed, slapped together feel, sometimes feeling as if Professor Abrams is talking just to check off boxes on the syllabus. Certain days of class feel like Abrams is literally pulling random facts out of his ass to make his retcons to the previous class fit. And he makes some of the critical information for the final available on Fortnite. Yknow, for the kids.

In the end, the class spells the beginning of the end of the History program at the university, leaving the students angry and confused about what the point of the courses even were in the first place, and more worried about the future of America than ever before. If HIST 2015 was about how cycles exist and repeat, and HIST 2017 was about how those cycles can be toxic and need to be broken, all 2019 did was prove that regardless of the broken nature of those cycles, they’ll nihilistically continue, no matter what you do, and whether you want them to or not, all at the behest of villains that continue to rise up and never really die.

The night before class starts, Abrams nervously looks over his lesson plans for the year, afraid of the backlash, trying to do his best with a subject he’s loved ever since he was a little kid. He looks to the university committee for help - they merely shrug, hoping it’ll get the complainers off their backs, so afraid of rocking the boat that they’ll do anything to steady it again. Abrams thinks about these complainers, and he cocks his head, wondering if these people so resistant to change truly ever understood the thing they were criticizing in the first place. Maybe he doesn’t himself. 

But it’s a fleeting thought. He waves it away, hops into bed, clicking off his lens flare night light as he does so. 

“Showtime,” he says to himself in the dark. 

But no one is listening. Not anymore. 

anyway now that we’re done pretending: “The dead speak!”? get the fuck outta here man

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On 4/13/2019 at 9:36 AM, jjsthekid said:

And for those wondering how this could be possible without cloning (since I don't think they want to repeat the most hated old EU storyline)

well uh, this post did not age well

from the film's novelization:

q09NLT4.jpg

ayyy canon sheev clones!

also for those wondering who sheev had sex with, you need not worry anymore:

"Palpatines son (Rey’s father) is also a clone, he did not impregnate anyone. The son is one of the clone projects of Palpatine, because they kept trying to make a body for Palps to contain his power. The son is a perfect bodied clone. Palpatine hated the son for being a failure as he had no Force abilities."

love how this important shit had to be explained in a book lmao i can't with this movie

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Fun fact, in a LOT of early Disney movies...actually, all the way up to 1997 "Hercules" arguably, MANY of the Disney villains were actually closeted GAY villains, who HATED the fact that they couldn't get it together with a member of the opposite sex, and so, decided to take out their anger on the rest of the universe or whatever. So, simply par for the course for Disney.

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