Star Wars Episode IX - SPOILER THREAD
 

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker had its premiere last night at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. Non-Spoiler reviews and Twitter mentions are trickling out and they're overwhelmingly positive.

I'll be seeing the film Thursday night, 6:30pm PST but I'm not sure if I'll have time to post because we're traveling for the holidays, leaving at 4am the next morning. If I can't post Thursday evening, I'll get to it at some point over the weekend, maybe after I've seen it a second time.

It's a Spoiler thread but let's try to keep the real spoilery stuff in the Spoiler Tags through the weekend, just so we don't ruin the movie for someone that accidentally clicks on the thread.

Let's hear it! :)

I love that the reviews are positive. But, I’m holding back my enthusiasm as the reviews for the last couple were also amazing.

Really? I've seen a lot of negativity.

Massive story spoilers below

Everything I’ve seen has been glowing.

The RT score is definitely not what I expected so far.score in spoiler

Updated score and total reviews #. .

Didn't read the spoiler but alot of loved it or hate it reactions going on.

I’ve seen a few. Seems mixed. Most are saying convoluted first hour. Better second hour.

I’m sure I will like it. I’m not as hard on these films as most fanboys.

Copy paste from the other thread, this time with video.

Anything can sound corny when put on paper. It's the execution that matters.

Also:

Yeah, I watched the execution of it already. It ****ing sucks, in my opinion. If you think differently, that's great, but the entire sequence feels incredibly rushed and underserved, and it's the god-damned climax of this trilogy of movies.

I’ll be taking my oldest twin daughter to see it. She loves the movies and to me....that’s all that matters.

This sounds exactly like Abrams.

I'm going Monday, so I'll avoid this thread until then. I've made it pretty clear that to say I'm a skeptic is a vast understatement. We'll see...

I'm not here to change anyone's opinion. A person will either enjoy and connect with the film or not enjoy and not connect with the film. I'm no Jedi and don't have the power of Mind Control. :)

What I will say is that taking an excerpt from a piece of art, whether it's a section of a song or a few minutes from a feature film, then basing your opinion on that small of a section, can often be misleading because you're not immersed in the entire piece - it's just a fragment.

My thoughts on The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are archived here on the site for everyone to read and re-read. I struggled with both films at the time of their release. My opinions evolved and changed over time and after recently re-watching the entire 10 movies in order (including Solo and Rogue One), I can admit that my feelings towards The Force Awakens and the Last Jedi have evolved yet again, especially viewing all of the movies as a whole.

To be honest, they've changed for the better, especially TFA and TLJ (and even Attack of the Clones, which I used to think was unwatchable but now realize that it IS watchable - it's just not my favorite by any justification).

Anyway, I'm expecting to see a well cast, well written and well produced film that doesn't necessarily live up to all of my grand expectations but one that will likely wrap up the saga as well as one can possibly wrap up a series of movies that began production more than 44 years ago, involving thousands of people, most of whom that have never worked together or even met, that has an enormous burden of making fans everywhere happy, or at least, somewhat placated.

I probably won't have a "true" opinion until after I've seen it 4 or 5 times and have had some time between my last viewing in the theater and my first few viewings at home. And like the other non-OT films (and not including Rogue One and Solo, which I absolutely LOVED, especially R1), my opinions and feelings about the RoS will likely evolve over time as well.

The cinematography is awesome. If they would've pushed this movie back and thought out the plot points better it would've done a world of good. Feels like so much missed potential. It's still miles better than TLJ so there's that.

I enjoyed it well enough. The Palpatine stuff doesn’t make all that much sense in the context of the eight other movies, but I’m fine suspending my disbelief as he’s always been a good, prescient and clearly super powerful villain. Yeah, I guess it takes away meaning from the Anakin “Chosen One” narrative but whatever. It’s not Abrams’ job to worry about that.

I personally think TLJ remains the best of the three films of this trilogy (with the exception of the useless side quest, it works quite well overall (the Rey/Ren/Luke dynamic) despite subverting expectations), but I will have to see this again to know for sure.

Star Wars is campy comic book fun now.

It was a very fun movie.

And very silly.

I still laughed, cried, whatever.

But JJ sure is an unoriginal bastard. LMAO

It's pretty telling that your new characters are shit when you have more emotional investment in a robot. CP30 ****ing STOLE that movie. LMAO

Anyway, I did enjoy it. But you know, whatever. Kind of like reading Dark Empire.

https://i.annihil.us/u/prod/marvel/i...9c9f/clean.jpg

I have to say, though, I DID love the arc for Kylo Ren through this whole thing. That was the most satisfying part of it for me. Glad he got to kiss someone once in his life. LMAO

But Rey, Finn and Poe?

Soul-less vessels for the fans to pretend they are in Star Wars.

One thing I will say, I LOVED the training scene with young Luke and Leia....and that is proof that someday we will get the sequel trilogy we deserve.

That was amazing.

Also, JJ really knows how to pull on your emotions.

Chewie's dead! Wait, nope.

3P0's dead! Wait, nope!

I enjoy both of those bait and switches, especially when R2 was like "c'mere you big lug."

Most enjoyable part of the movie for me.

Guys in costumes.

LMAO

phenomenal

https://i.redd.it/91v0h75mog541.jpg

https://i.redd.it/bmm4kq9skg541.jpg

oh, and it's fine to shit on this movie

it really is

but i let out a little whoop when i saw denis lawson in a ****ing x-wing

so **** you, i enjoyed it, even if it was rehashed garbage

mmmm, mmmmm, good!

A "meh" review from the guy who'd happily watch two hours of Jake Lloyd Anakin and Jar Jar playing holographic chess.

*shudder*

you should go see it just for the schlock action value and about 50 references to the OT - i mean they got me crying more than once! and the jokes? ON POINT

it was literally like watching one of the campy dark horse star wars comic books, in which they brought the Emperor back NOT ONCE but TWICE!!!

this trilogy was very poorly thought out - entertaining, but very poorly thought out

if they had just stuck with snoke dying and kylo being the bad guy and developed that story arc they would have been a lot better off

the emperor returning was lazy screenwriting from a bunch of hacks who didn't have a clue what they were doing to begin with

this is why i still enjoy the last jedi - it was the most original and had the most unexpected twists

TFA and TROS were hamfisted Abrams rehash nonsense

entertaining though - i mean, very enjoyable to watch - turn the page for more campy jar jar abrams action!

I'll give Disney credit for one thing - they almost completely cut that stupid ass character Rose out of the story

TROS was fun and cute for nostalgia's sake but the movie itself was pretty uneven and hard to watch at times. I laughed out loud at a lot of parts that weren't supposed to be funny. That's ok though; my daughter had fun and that's really all that matters.

This is the first Star Wars movie I have walked out of feeling truly disappointed. I didn’t love the prequels, terrible dialogue but good stories. TFA rehash of ANH, don’t care loved it. TLJ, good story but messed up Luke’s character arc. The first half of this movie was pure rushed hot garbage. To me, it seemed like JJ was trying to repair the perceived damage from TLJ, and in doing so ruined this movie.

JJ never had any idea what he was doing from the beginning.

TFA was only popular because it was the first Star Wars thing in years.

JJ sure can make a shiny-looking piece of shit though!

Welcome to Lucasfilm, now reduced to the level of the Transformers franchise.

How many ret-cons can you fit into one movie?
-A lot. Try to count them all.

How many people/things "died" and came back to life in this movie?
-A lot. Try to count them all.

What the hell was Finn going to tell Rey?
-Guess we'll never know.

Lol at "Sith Finder" or whatever the hell they were called.
-The unobtainium of the Star Wars universe I guess.

Your eyes will roll to the back of your head so many times that your eye sockets will hurt. I mean, right at the opening crawl was my first eye-roll.

I hope the hell that it turns out that they used baby Yoda to revive Palpatine or the Mandalorian story is going to be diminished in meaning.

Speaking of Palpatine....why? how?...seriously HOW? they never tell us. (see the above comment). Who did he bang? His son decided not to go into the family business I take it? How did his super duper force lightning (after he took Kylo and Reys "life force" to fix himself) know to attack just the resistance ships and not the Sith ones?

So many happy/lucky coincidences in this movie...oh, hey, it's Lando Calrissian at this random festival on this random planet in this random tank thing....oooh, here's Leia's light saber, she'd want you to have it, oh yeah, I forgot, Leia was trained by Luke in the past, we're just now telling you that...and she had a lightsaber....that wasn't pink because women are tough.....which leads me to....

I get the "me too" thing, but Christ, it is ruining TV and movies now. It's like strong male characters aren't allowed to exist anymore.

Xwings are incredibly water-tight.

Who needs a force ghost when you can have a "memory" of a non-force sensitive person that serves the same purpose.

In the time since Return of the Jedi, Palpatine was able to find people to build a fleet of oh, let's call it 100 star destroyers, human crews to run them, and none of it got out? To anyone?

Each of the star destroyers had your typical human crew in typical imperial-ish clothing, but in Palpatine's throne room, there is literally an arena with thousands of cloaked individuals in the seats....WTF?

No Anakin Skywalker appearance...was a bit of letdown for me.

It's sad when 3PO is one of the best parts of the movie.

There is so much more, but I'm tired of typing. I'll end by saying that while this is pretty bad, it wasn't Last Jedi bad. JJ was fighting a losing battle because of the shit show that Rian Johnson left him with Last Jedi. They should have let him do all 3 movies....or the Russo Brothers. There was a LOT of fan-service, which was nice, and there were never any slow parts. It also set up a LOT of other spin-off stories that can be told if they choose to do so...But alas, the skywalker saga is over...until the next force sensitive person stumbles upon Luke and Leia's lightsabers (didn't get that part either).

The Palpatine grandbaby backstory was very rushed and hamfisted.

Just a bad idea to bring him back.

Like how the **** did he have a son and not ensure that son or any of his offspring got beyond his control?

HOW?!?!

This would have been BEFORE HE DIED IN RETURN OF THE JEDI.

Stupid.

But you know, yay, McDiarmid! I enjoyed him. As much as I enjoy Megatron wrecking shit in Transformers.

I actually loved this scene. It made me tear up, because the look on Luke's face getting that X-Wing out of the water was glorious. Acting!

In fact, I wanted it in TLJ, although the force projection stuff was better in the end.

TLJ is the best movie of the sequels because it subverts your expectations and gives us something ORIGINAL.

LMAO

So true.

Brief thoughts:

1. Better than I expected but most certainly not on the level of the OT or Rogue One or even Solo. It felt more like Revenge of the Sith in that we knew what was going to happen, so it was just a matter of seeing it onscreen. If you're curious, see it or see it at a matinee. It's not awful and there are a ton of really great action scenes. That said, it did leave me a little "cold" for lack of a better word but I think that's because I don't really care about the characters like I did from the OT.

In many ways, it felt like Fan Fiction, in that everything that people wanted to see were put on display and not in a subtle manner. While that can be cool at times, it just felt like "Oh, the fans want to see this! The fans want to see that! Let's just give them everything they asked for on Twitter!".

2.


3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

Now, on to the Retconning of VIII:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

This trilogy ended on such a dumb, hamfisted note I am now compelled to read these:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....SR220,320_.jpg

Never have.

"it's like getting smacked in the face with a star wars cake"

LMAO

The conversation between Luke and Leia and the Force Projection scene were the most impactful of the new trilogy for me.

Rey’s summoning of the lightsaber in TFA is a close second.

now they are retconning kylo's turn in the comics which is....not bad altogether

it does kinda work well with him being a troubled young man/actually good at heart

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EMDaQc4U...name=4096x4096

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I realise this thread was all over the place but the comic is non-linear. Basically:<br>- Ben wakes up to see Luke, brings down the hut<br>- He stares into the distance and asks &quot;why&quot;; my heart breaks<br>- Starts walking towards the temple but it explodes before he gets there</p>&mdash; Skye #trosspoilers (@skyelo_ren) <a href="https://twitter.com/skyelo_ren/status/1207209252487450625?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 18, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

i kinda wish we got TROS without all the palpatine garbage

palpatine ruined this movie

it should have been kylo ren coming to terms with who he really is and subverting the evils of the first order

no OP Star Destroyers

no incredibly convenient "the people's fleet" showing up to save the day

shit, you could have had the resistance stealing first order star destroyers and shit

you can really tell how lazy JJ was with this palpatine shit though

"OH HEY HE'S BACK NO EXPLANATION NEEDED LET'S GO"

so ****ing stupid

LMFAO

Jar Jar Abrams is so stupid even his cool things are just plain dumbassed stupid

Holy ****. Could you have picked a worse screenwriter.

What a boring film. There were sparks of really bad ass scenes;make no mistake jj has SOME talent in film making, particularly cinematography and angles. He’s good at getting you emotional but that’s about it. What a rush contrived bullshit mess. They should have made it a two parter if anything. A lot of this film felt like it should’ve been in the last Jedi. I enjoyed bens story arc premise but not the way it was rushed or presented. The entire film felt rushed and it was two hours.

Honestly, they should’ve been ballsy and had Rey give in to the dark side and Ben actually save the galaxy and become the true chosen one.

i know you guys hate TLJ

but i guarantee Rian could have written a far more satisfying ending to this trilogy

and I know for sure he wouldn't have ****ing given us shots lifted straight from the end of ROTJ to cap it off

look, Ewoks!

JJ should be sued for plagiarism

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What did people really expect.

This is the guy who remade Wrath of Khan but flipped Kirk and Spock's roles so it was somehow OK.

Jar Jar Abrams is a talented filmmaker can make a well-made movie with high entertainment value and a total shit plot.

If he touches any Indiana Jones shit I'll riot.

The kiss scene with Ben and Rey was humorous as if they had this sexual tension... **** fin right Rey?!? Lmao

Jj is so confusing. Give him an indie type of story with no real depth and he’ll make a very interesting world out of it in just one film but give him keys to gold and he will spit in your face but somehow you kinda don’t mind

I know.

I want to see this mess again just for the C3P0 humor and JJ pulling on my heartstrings with Skywalker nostalgia. LMAO

Not to mention the Star Wars theme blasting full force when "the people's armada" deus ex machina shows up.

Stupid ****.

What I liked:

Han Solo and Ben's redemption. Even though Leia felt so sudden, I don't think I had any time to process it emotionally so it felt a little rushed. Given the death of Carrie and the overall rushed tone of the movie, it felt good still. Having Harrison Ford pop up was a great cameo, and not as a force ghost, but a projection of Kylo's torment over killing his father, a memory as they put it. Loved that part.

Poe Dameron, outside of the final battle scene, was well done in the movie.

The first 75% of this movie, it felt like Star Wars to me, mystery, the force, Leia training Rey, witty banter, different worlds with different cultures and colors. It was well done and on par with the Force Awakens in my book.

What I didn't like:

The movie was rushed to retcon/explain plot points. We all know that JJ Abrams should've been the director off all three of them once they decided he was going to be the director of TFA. So many jump cuts, even outside of the action scenes, it was hard to sit still for more than ten seconds to gain any emotional connection with the characters outside of Ben and Rey.

Finn and Jaina, or whatever her name was. Finn should've died in Episode 8, Rose was relegated to a backseat role in this movie which was good, but they didn't have any kind of romance, which just shows how ridiculous her running into his pod was in Episode 8. Ever since the first movie, where we knew that Finn was just a guy, he tried to beat Kylo Ren with a lightsaber, he wasn't a force user, and his character was just a lovable joke maker, but his death would've helped Poe's character, and his arc that he was the General now with Leia gone, he had to become the leader and not the rogue skilled pilot. Jaina was pointless in this movie, introduced on Endor, and only with less than 30 minutes of screen time. There were thoughts that she was Lando's daughter he thought he'd lost to the Empire, and they even looked like they were going in that direction when she says she was a former stormtrooper like Finn was, but that went nowhere. Leaving us with an awkward pervy Lando moment at the end with him asking her "What's your story" and her saying "I don't know." and then Lando saying "You want to find out?" It felt like an old man hitting on a young girl at a bar, it was just weird and didn't need to be in the movie. Her character came down to helping Finn get from point A to point B, which could've been carried by Chewy or even BB-8.

The ending was skimmed over. Luke's explanation as a force ghost to Rey was good, but I wanted more of it. I wanted Rey to raise the X Wing out of the water, similar to Luke doing it in Empire, with Luke behind her telling her to clear her mind, and coaching her. The final battle had too much of Rey walking up to Palpatine and him saying the same line over and over of "She will strike me down and become the Empress." It's like we get it, she's not going to do that. Like some have said, it would've been cool if she gave into the dark side, then Ben had to pull her out of it. Ben against Rey and the Emporer would've been a much better end fight scene than what it ended up being, although I did appreciate the call back to Revenge of the Sith, where instead of Palpatine being saved by Anakin before his face melted off from Mace Windu, this time he just gets obliterated. The kiss was hokey, Ben's death was ridiculously fast after that, when he transferred his life force it just looked like he put his hand on her belly, closed his eyes and then poof! She's alive!!! I thought the last 25% of this movie was rushed and needed to be longer, especially with Ben fighting the Knights of Ren. Those clowns went down in two seconds after he got a saber in his hand.

Palpatine. He shouldn't have been used, they offered no reason for how he's alive what so ever, and what's with the thousands of Sith disciples down there? How long have they been down there? What do they eat on an ice/metal/lightning planet to sustain themselves? Why didn't they come to the aid of their Emperor? They were just there for show and nothing else thus a waste. I don't know what JJ should've done, but something better would've been preferable. Snoke shouldn't have died in Episode 8, and then you could have the reveal that he's a clone of Emperor Palpatine in the last one and he's the big bad.

I liked it, I won't let the ending drag down the bulk of good work by JJ. I'd rate it as 7 being the best, 8 being mediocre, and 9 being between the two. He did what he could with what he had, but JJ should've just been the director for all three films. I don't know why they wanted to split it up like that, when you have the Russos in the Marvel Universe, you don't give them Infinity War and then give a whole new director Endgame. That was their **** up from the get go.

You mean when the Avengers assembled. The final act was eerily similar to Avengers Endgame if you really think about it. Not really dogging it, when all those ships showed up was the one time during the movie where I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

They should have just stuck with Trevorrow.

I'm pretty sure he wasn't going to just CTRL C-CTRL V from ROTJ.

They can go a long way to redeeming this in my eyes by saying that they used baby yoda (somehow) to revive Palpatine. It fits the timeline. The "empire" has him now. It could at least provide some sort of explanation rather than just hitting us in the opening crawl with....THE DEAD SPEAK! It would also strengthen the importance of the Mandalorian series/story.

Everything with Lando was great in this film.

It's so sad that the saving grace of all these films is a bunch of old farts. ROFL

Speaking of which, Ford looked great - looked like he's had some more work done, or CGI is just that good now. Can't wait to see him as Indiana Jones again.

Bro these people don't have a ****ing clue and no over-arcing storyline. There's no way they will connect that dot.

And even if they did, it still freakin' stupid.

Palpatine should have been left entirely alone. ENTIRELY.

The only acceptable way of bringing him back that's been done post-ROTJ was this.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kSTgu2gj-Qo" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I love McDiarmid but they should have left Palps alone. I liked it more than TLJ, at least. That wasn't gonna take much, though. Hopefully they map things out a little from the beginning when they get around to another trilogy.

Uhh, isn't it implied that Finn IS a force user?

Even a Harry Potter style "Palps can't die while his children live/only Rey can end him" would have at least given a light reason that allows the viewers to connect the dots.

But nah, Palps is just back ya'll. Deal wit it.

Who ****ing cares.

Finn is one of the worst Star Wars characters of all time.

He was great in TFA and his arc went nowhere.

I CARE MORE ABOUT DROIDS THAN REAL LIFE HUMAN ACTORS BECAUSE THE CHARACTERS THEY PLAY ARE SO SHIT

thank **** for Adam Driver

he saved this trilogy from being nothing more than nostalgic masturbation

even comic books are better at explaining palpatine's return

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/KKkR9x8OXE...FiifkeV4=s1600

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Adam Driver is the Ewan McGregor of this trilogy.

Great comparison. Would have been great if you know, just in case they wanted to continue his story.

Whatever. I'm with Clay - they showed that creating a trilogy with Luke, Leia and Han is definitely possible with this. Silver linings.

but wait, there's more! GUESS WHO'S BACK! BACK AGAIN!

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/0Xmoc21ro_...zWcrmyDe=s1600

AND SOMEHOW...an even more SATISFYING ENDING!

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/uKxfG0bCKL...lPjp-eSw=s1600

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Why did they even bother including the Knights of Ren? They just showed up and stood there most of the movie until it's time for them to be fodderized. The ****ing Praetorian guards did more.

They confirmed that this film

I'm fine with this being just forgotten if we can get a fully CGI Thrawn Trilogy ripoff in 10-20 years

just show them mopping up the remnants of the empire or something and squashing some wannabe dark jedi

trilogy ends with kylo being born

Plasma was worse. What a joke

bro JJ threw every star wars asset he had at the wall and hoped people would be entertained

well congrats, we were, but we'll never be satisfied by empty calories

No. She had dialogue.

A creative writer can plant the seeds to Palpatine still orchestrating things behind the scenes too.

Or we can just bring back Qui-Gon or something if JJ gets Lindelof involved I guess.

just retcon that shit

literally ignore it

last scene:

leia: "i sure hope we can rest now...this war might finally be over"

luke: "i still sense a dark presence out there...lingering...in the unknown regions."

han: "not in this universe, kid."

*wink*

DOO DA DOO DA DOO DOO DOO

It is pretty rich that anybody that hated TLJ would criticize this one. Disney basically ignored or retconned entire themes, messages, and characters from that movie. For whatever reason (despite the vast majority of audiences liking TLJ), it seems to have been directly made to appease those haters and TROS was worse because of it.

It has a sub 40% audience score. Hardly "the vast majority".

Wow, it's almost like a small minority of people review bombed that website as they have done to countless other films they felt were too 'SJW' for them.

LMAO What a lazy deflection. "It was the anti SJWs!!!!!!"

She had 5 words and then dead


All the fighting scenes are lackluster sans a couple

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_W...ence_reception
Audience reception
Audience reception measured by scientific polling methods was highly positive.[152][153][154] Audiences randomly polled by CinemaScore on opening day gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[117][153] Surveys from SurveyMonkey and comScore's PostTrak found that 89% of audience members graded the film positively, including a rare five-star rating.[115][155][156]

User-generated scores at Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic were more negative. At Rotten Tomatoes, 43% of users rated the film 3.5 stars or higher out of a possible 5,[136] while at Metacritic, the average user score is 4.4 out of 10.[157] Audience scores found on such sites require only registration and do not ensure that contributing voters have seen the film.[158] Several reviewers speculated that coordinated vote brigading from internet groups and bots contributed to the low scores.[159][160][161] ] Quartz noted that some new accounts gave negative ratings to both The Last Jedi and Thor: Ragnarok, while Bleeding Cool stated that reviews for the latter film had tapered off but then "skyrocketed".[162][163] In response to tampering claims shortly after the film's release, a Fandango executive stated that Rotten Tomatoes detected no unusual activity on The Last Jedi aside from a noticeable "uptick in the number of written user reviews".[164][165] In 2019, a Rotten Tomatoes spokesperson stated that the film had been "seriously targeted" with a review-bombing campaign.[166]

Hmm yeah, I wonder why there was such a stark difference there between CinemaScore/Survey Monkey/PostTrak and the other user-generated scores at the prominent reviewing websites. I guess it will always just be a mystery.

It def was a sjw mess.i support more inclusion but not if it results to lackluster plot devices. I did enjoy the attempt to try something original but it completely killed my interest in any of the main characters. It was better than force awakens.

That's the problem, though. Let Rian try something original with something original, not the middle movie in a trilogy that's the back end of the Skywalker saga that spans literal generations.

The problem, ultimately, is that Star Wars has such a widespread audience. Kids, casual fans, those brought up with Clone Wars/the prequels, and those that have been involved with each of the movies from the original series, and of course, those that have dived into the EU from the very beginning.

I think it means that the fanbase, as a whole, doesn't really know what it wants from a movie. People largely forgave TFA for stealing ANH because it revived the series, but the overwhelming consensus was that TLJ had to be original. It couldn't just run through the motions of ESB. Unfortunately, JJ set up all of the main storybeats to follow ESB, but I digress.

We did get something original, and the people that hated it, hated it. There are legitimate beefs about the movie, there were too many plotlines (a problem that developed solely because of the edits to Rian's script). Holdo stepping in for Leia (a problem that developed solely because of edits to Rian's script), not enough focus on Luke/Rey (a problem that developed solely because of edits to Rian's script) and Rose and Finn doing whatever those two were doing (a problem that developed solely because of edits to Rian's script).

Anywho, I think I've made my point. A lot of weird things happened between Rian's first draft, production, and the edit. I don't know who got involved or what the ideas behind the changes were, but it's always made me wonder if that's why Disney has kept Rian around since the things criticized most about TLJ were choices that were not in Rian's original script.

Astral Projection and Luke dying were always going to be divisive. When Carrie Fisher passed, I think the obvious choice was to keep Luke alive. At any rate, I love that scene with Luke - even if his ****-talking to Kylo now feels cruel thanks to JJ deciding that it was actually a dead dark lord who was responsible for every bad thing Kylo has ever done (how creative, Abrams!)