Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

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feihong
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:20 pm

Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#176 Post by feihong » Fri Dec 20, 2019 7:18 pm

At the Arclight they warned us ahead of the movie that there were repeated flashing images that had irritated people with conditions like epilepsy during the previous screenings. I thought that meant a whole helping of Abrams' lens flares, but that was not the case. Here he's replaced that overdone move with strobing. It seemed like nearly the entire last hour of the movie was full of constant strobing lights. I can take them in some isolation (watching Cyclo, with its pair of strobe-lit scenes doesn't do anything to me, for example), but the strobing at the end of this movie is oppressive and unrelenting. I have some tension and neurological problems relating to previous trauma, so I suppose my response might not be the norm, but I was profoundly discomfited during the drawn-out finale of this movie.

And I couldn't help thinking they must have been very desperate to make this movie exciting at its end. Since they hadn't built a consistent sense of drama throughout this trilogy, they didn't feel as if they could just let the mist and the production design imply the dread and tension at the end of the film––they had to punch it up with a sensory experience that conveyed the tension that the drama couldn't; in this case constant strobing light.

Incidentally, the Sith temple, with its apparently floating stone, seemed to be taken whole cloth from the Valerian comics "At the Edge of the Great Void" and "The Order of the Stones." I laughed when I saw it, though I think this borrowed image is probably the most striking think in The Rise of Skywalker. This isn't the first time Star Wars had taken images directly from Valerian comics; the massive gate at Jabba the Hut's palace comes from an earlier Valerian story, and Princess Leia's bronze bikini is cribbed from an outfit Laureline wears in "World Without Stars." Another early Valerian book offers up a tall mechanical–looking being of great wisdom with a billowing cape and a helmet that obscures its face. At the end of the story this creature is unmasked and revealed to be a wizened, desiccated human being under the mask, which reminds me of one of the more famous figures in Star Wars. But it was pretty funny to see them reaching back to the same source of so many of their earlier visual coups.

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R0lf
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#177 Post by R0lf » Fri Dec 20, 2019 8:03 pm

TheDudeAbides wrote:
Fri Dec 20, 2019 12:57 pm
Abrams stuck to focusing on it's core group of characters rather than trying to force in new leads that didn't quite stick the landing (I'm looking at you Rose).
Really? Because I wondered why they kept introducing a new female “helper” character who connects with the leads at each new location through the movie when they could have just used Rose. And there was that whole shoehorned in Fin “Rey, I have something to tell you...” plot that had never been established before where, again, it would have been better to use Rose.

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Luke M
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#178 Post by Luke M » Sat Dec 21, 2019 1:49 am

I saw this tonight. Easily the worst Star Wars movie and possibly the worst movie I've seen this year. Absolutely nothing worked. Jokes fell silent in the sold out theater I was in. No one clapped, no one cheered. Feels like it was made by someone who's never made a movie.

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tenia
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#179 Post by tenia » Sat Dec 21, 2019 6:40 am

feihong wrote:
Fri Dec 20, 2019 7:18 pm
I have some tension and neurological problems relating to previous trauma, so I suppose my response might not be the norm, but I was profoundly discomfited during the drawn-out finale of this movie.
I have none of this, but the scene early in the movie was already enough to make me wonder if the point of this was just screwing with the viewers. It's visually overdone but indeed mostly extremely quickly exhausting. Which, come to think about it, is quite on par with the whole movie.

What's fascinating is that while this seems to be indeed solely to improve visually the drama the story couldn't pull off by itself, when the climax really plays, the movie drops the ball
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and ends up relying at stargazing with voice-overs, ie the least visual idea possible.

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bearcuborg
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#180 Post by bearcuborg » Sat Dec 21, 2019 10:09 am

Luke M wrote:
Sat Dec 21, 2019 1:49 am
I saw this tonight. Easily the worst Star Wars movie and possibly the worst movie I've seen this year. Absolutely nothing worked. Jokes fell silent in the sold out theater I was in. No one clapped, no one cheered. Feels like it was made by someone who's never made a movie.
I agree with your take and had a similar experience. Despite their obvious problems, the prequels had some cool things in each of them. Revenge of the Sith was my least favorite for years because it felt like it rushed to the conclusion - this one does the same but in a way that makes so little sense that it actually makes the other trilogies irrelevant. I'll tell you one thing, it made me appreciate what Rian Johnson did a hell of a lot more - as JJ could have done virtually anything but instead decided to do a watered down greatest hits of Star Wars. There was never any tension, the emotion wasn't earned. C3PO is probably the best thing in the movie. Palpation's (no longer Sidious I guess) make up was badass. Naomi Ackee is gorgeous. Poe and Zorii Bliss had a funny moment at the end...those are the only positives.

I'll give JJ this, his first 40mins of TFA are as good as anything apart from Empire and New Hope in a Star Wars movie. I don't know if they knew how good it was - but then it starts to hit familiar beats and goes down hill from there. By the time you get the TLJ you begin to realize that the major things that don't work in that movie are because JJ wasted so much rehashing a New Hope that Rian's bold ideas don't really have time materialize.

In the end it probably should have been one or the other to make these movies. In my mind this whole thing ended with The Last Jedi. I never want to see this movie again.

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R0lf
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#181 Post by R0lf » Sat Dec 21, 2019 10:17 am

The lightsaber duel also has to be one of the most poorly choreographed scenes of the year rivalling those early dance sequences in the SUSPIRIA remake. Action and movement is only present through the editing with very little of the fight actually happening on screen. It was annoyingly frustrating to watch.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#182 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Dec 21, 2019 7:13 pm

The best part of this movie was
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the deus ex machina when Rey uses the protractor as a map based on two random hills fitting. All I could think was... if she landed a little closer or father away, the protracter wouldn’t have fit! What if she landed on the other side of that mountain where the perspective would be backward, or anywhere else on the planet? Are there no two mountains that kind of fit that simple pattern? Is that even technically a pattern if it’s just two hills? How did a blacksmith craft this object, after standing on that hilltop and looking at the desired area, noticing those two sweet hills sticking out amongst the rubble?

That’s about the most thinking and feeling I had while watching this movie.

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bearcuborg
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#183 Post by bearcuborg » Sat Dec 21, 2019 7:35 pm

Wow. You really did think that through...your breakdown was more interesting than that moment in the movie, that’s for sure.

I just shook my head, and thought “what the hell is this Goonies shit?” It really belonged in a video game, or Indiana Jones.
Last edited by bearcuborg on Sat Dec 21, 2019 7:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#184 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Dec 21, 2019 7:41 pm

To give credit where credit is due, the film didn’t give me much else to think through

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movielocke
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#185 Post by movielocke » Sat Dec 21, 2019 8:03 pm

Oh god the protractor made me so angry I was seething for a long time.


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therewillbeblus
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#186 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Dec 21, 2019 8:14 pm

I laughed out loud when she extended the protractor part as a last minute Indiana Jones twist on the relic to find the treasure but all it did was serve as an arrow to point

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Luke M
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#187 Post by Luke M » Sat Dec 21, 2019 8:31 pm

I especially liked all the new stuff they made up:
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Jedis can heal wounds. Leia had a lightsaber. Palpatine can come back from the dead AND can take life force from people.

But the biggest head scratcher: Palpatine fucks?

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#188 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Dec 21, 2019 8:45 pm

Luke M wrote:
Sat Dec 21, 2019 8:31 pm
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But the biggest head scratcher: Palpatine fucks?
Yeah, I actually did think about that one during the movie. Maybe I’m not giving it enough credit for making me think after all.

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movielocke
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#189 Post by movielocke » Sat Dec 21, 2019 9:50 pm

Luke M wrote:I especially liked all the new stuff they made up:
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Jedis can heal wounds. Leia had a lightsaber. Palpatine can come back from the dead AND can take life force from people.

But the biggest head scratcher: Palpatine fucks?
As came up in our post screening ranting, why make the parents innocent, shouldn’t they have been like nazis in Argentina instead?

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#190 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Dec 21, 2019 9:59 pm

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Because everyone knows it's the grandparents you have to watch out for.

Image

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Finch
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#191 Post by Finch » Sat Dec 21, 2019 10:38 pm

Well played, my friend. ^^^

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What A Disgrace
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#192 Post by What A Disgrace » Sun Dec 22, 2019 12:52 am

I thought it was really dumb, but I can't bring myself to hate it or be angry. I thought I would at least hate it a little, but I just can't do it.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#193 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Dec 22, 2019 1:11 am

I would second that reaction, mine was more like numbed apathy.

I also really liked eps 7 and 8 so it really showed me how little stake I had in this thing, and as others have already pointed out, how thin this story was from the start. Having said that, those first two entries in this trilogy stand alongside the best of the series for me, so not all is lost.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#194 Post by mfunk9786 » Sun Dec 22, 2019 3:10 am

This was terrible. I bailed on it around halfway through, so I can't say it doesn't turn around, but Regal Unlimited allows me to be a little more respectful of my own time since I paid a small fee to see it instead of the entire ticket price.

Anyway, my highlights are tied:
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When none of the young folks know who Lando is, and then there is what seems like it came from a reshoot due to some strange editing where Finn hamhandedly compliments him as though to say "I'm the black guy from Star Wars now, and I couldn't have done it without you."

And of course, when Kelly Marie Tran declares that she's going to be too busy doing some work to go on an adventure with the rest of the main characters from the previous film. So incredibly shameless and borderline disgusting. Poochie, eat your heart out.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#195 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Dec 22, 2019 3:26 am

Ugh I forgot about those parts. The most poorly acted/edited/whatevered joke of the film for me was
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Tran and Fisher telling that guy to deliver news more optimistically. Not only did it not make sense from a pragmatic standpoint or within the internal logic of the universe to cut to the chase in dire times of needing news without the fat, but there was no development of mood to assume this joke could be coming, or set dynamics to care about how the gag continued once he went into screwball mode. I was so confused and squirming, and that’s pretty much all Tran gets to do.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#196 Post by mfunk9786 » Sun Dec 22, 2019 3:32 am

The script has the rhythm of that game where you keep hitting the middle word that your phone suggests you're about to type until it forms some kind of Mad Libs sentence where something is just off.

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swo17
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#197 Post by swo17 » Sun Dec 22, 2019 4:24 am

mfunk9786 wrote:
Sun Dec 22, 2019 3:10 am
This was terrible. I bailed on it around halfway through, so I can't say it doesn't turn around, but Regal Unlimited allows me to be a little more respectful of my own time since I paid a small fee to see it instead of the entire ticket price.
I was gonna say that without finishing a film you don't have the right to criticize it, but on second thought, thank you for reducing Disney's profits

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Luke M
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#198 Post by Luke M » Sun Dec 22, 2019 10:40 am

I think the second half might actually be worse. But to each their own.

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bearcuborg
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#199 Post by bearcuborg » Sun Dec 22, 2019 10:48 am

If memory serves the first half is just clumsy, bad and boring. The second half is all of those things too, but then also confusing and undoing Star Wars history.

Also, this might be the only saga film with no wipes.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)

#200 Post by mfunk9786 » Sun Dec 22, 2019 12:29 pm

swo17 wrote:
Sun Dec 22, 2019 4:24 am
mfunk9786 wrote:
Sun Dec 22, 2019 3:10 am
This was terrible. I bailed on it around halfway through, so I can't say it doesn't turn around, but Regal Unlimited allows me to be a little more respectful of my own time since I paid a small fee to see it instead of the entire ticket price.
I was gonna say that without finishing a film you don't have the right to criticize it, but on second thought, thank you for reducing Disney's profits
Yeah I didn't give it a star rating on Letterboxd and won't feel empowered to rank it here or anywhere, even though rank is a pretty good descriptor of what I saw

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