The Rise of Skywalker

[bedlamsbard]

I went to see it last night -- there were a few hours there where it was touch and go whether or not it would actually happen, since it started snowing a few hours before and my mother wasn't sure if she wanted to drive on that in the dark. (Oh, yeah, btw, I'm back in Washington for the holiday.)

Spoilers below the break.



This was some Zahn-level old EU-style nonsense that was so over-the-top I can't even hate it. However, that's heavily dependent on the fact that I burnt out on mainstream Star Wars so badly that I have almost no emotions remaining towards it; if I'd had even a fraction of what I still had a year ago I'd be big mad at this movie. As it is, it's so over-the-top and video-game-y and honestly '90s/'00s EU-feeling that I mostly can't take it seriously enough to have any real emotions. (Also, see again, burnt out and bad on most Star Wars, and I was never an ST fan in the first place.)

My biggest problem with the film is something that's going to sound comparatively minor: it's the fact that TROS threw out four years of canon about Poe's backstory to make a throwaway joke about him having been a spice-runner. Poe's backstory as part of the New Republic Navy was established all the way back to TFA's shared release date in Before the Awakening and it's since been a major part of the ST-era ancillary material -- there's a comic that came out within the past two months that takes place with Poe still in the New Republic Navy. Is this going to be retconned within the next six months as Poe having been undercover? Sure. The fact that it has to be retconned when this is literally the oldest part of ST-era canon is fucking exhausting to me; this isn't something that came out recently like Resistance Reborn.

And this has consistently been a problem for me with the ST and with a fair amount of the new canon; it was my problem with TLJ and the "tracking a ship with hyperspace" mcguffin. There's been some conversation about this recently (bessyboo sums it up here and in the linked threads and article), but honestly the bare minimum which I require is for the canon to not be contradicting itself right, left, and sideways when Lucasfilm itself continuously makes a big deal over IT'S ALL CANON NOW! Like, this is a major issue for me. This isn't the kind of persnickety "well, how long is a star destroyer?" detail that gets pointed to with, like, the fact-collector side of fandom, this is a major ongoing part of a character's backstory that has been fundamental for years. And there are a lot of other details, small and large, that Lucasfilm has likewise trod on while putting out new canon -- Ahsoka's new blue lightsabers in the upcoming season of TCW, for example, when they're distinctly described as green in the Ahsoka novel. Star Wars Rebels making a big fuss about data found in the Jedi Temple Archives a week after the Darth Vader comics completely wiped the Jedi Temple Archives. And you know, I would care less if Lucasfilm was just upfront about the fact that canon is a shifting and constantly overwritten target, or go back to the old layered form from the EU days, but the fact is that they are still claiming it's all canon and all equal when it's not. And the lack of respect shown by the creators really, really bothers me.

And yeah, you know, to some extent I just have to go "fuck it" and stick to the stuff I actually care about -- which is at the moment a very slim amount of current Star Wars canon -- and of course as a fanfic writer I have the luxury of doing so, though I still get yelled at about it. Back when I first started writing SW -- er, actually, the third time I started writing Star Wars? I've been in and out of the fandom since 2007 -- anyway, back in 2013, I buckled down and went full grad school research mode on it before I felt comfortable doing chaptered fic (which was not a feeling I'd had two years earlier on my last foray into SW, so it may honestly have been a result of grad school). And yes, I did get readers going "well, don't you know about [obscure canon detail]" and I still get them occasionally, even with canon resetting. And honestly? It messes with me, both as a fan and as a fanfic writer, to see the pros (my major complaint is with the book writers but that's a whole other kettle of fish) not doing what I consider to be the minimum amount of research. It's very "you should at the very least be able to FAKE knowing at least as much about Star Wars as I do," and I'm a hardcore fan but I'm not as hardcore as many people. It bothers me. It really bothers me.

Uh, okay, uh, thoughts about the actual film.

Rey leaves me rather cold in general -- I genuinely understand why she is so important to so many people, but she's not a character for me -- and this film wasn't an exception. Especially here her powers are so over the top that it's hard for me to take her seriously as a character -- I can explain it off if need be, but the fact that I feel like I have to is kind of exhausting, and it really to me adds to the "this feels like a video game" aspect. (And I just did a watch-through of Jedi: Fallen Order a few weeks ago, so "Star Wars video game" is fairly fresh in my mind. I liked JFO a lot, btw.)

I'm okay with Kylo Ren's turnabout? I never had a lot of investment in him in the first place, but I actually really liked him going at the Knights of Ren and Imperial Guards (? or were they Praetorians? or something new?) with a blaster. I got spoiled for his death but not the context, and tbh, I don't think they could have ended this series without having him die. I understand why people are upset with him dying instead of surviving but honestly after the shitshow that was Rebels S4 I can't work up an emotion about it.

(Which is honestly my reaction to most Star Wars for the past two years, so don't take it as a judgment on TROS or anything.)

Leia...her death was bullshit but, you know, I don't know what else they could have done short of pulling a Rogue One Tarkin with her and they had already said they wouldn't do that. I think a shadow that's forever going to hang over the film is what it would have been like if Carrie Fisher hadn't died; I don't know that it would have been better, I don't know that it would have been worse, but we'll never know. There's nothing that can be done about it.

I liked that we got Leia-with-a-lightsaber -- it felt like such a "fuck you" to Those Men, You Know Who They Are. I do think it was a bit awkwardly done -- since TROS I've disliked how much the ST leans on visions and flashbacks, because it's something that I don't think works as well in SW films as it does in the comics -- but as a concept? Yeah, I'm glad we got it. (I do sideeye Leia then having to put the lightsaber aside for Important Plot Reasons, but whatever, it's done, there's going to be some great cosplay and some good fic and some hopefully halfway decent comics and novels coming out of that one flashback.)

Han's appearance to Kylo (Ben?) was the one time in this film I cried. I didn't recognize his voice at first, so I was expecting it to be Luke when Kylo turned around. It's well-known at this point that Harrison Ford is kind of meh on SW in general, so for that reason alone I didn't expect him to come back and that made his appearance even more shocking to me. It worked for me, though. (I suspect in the alternate universe where Carrie didn't die it would have been Leia, with some other stuff in the film played differently? And honestly, I'm not sure it would have worked as well.)

I...I can't even talk about the plot of the movie because it was such EU-style nonsense that I just had to roll with it. Look, whatever, Lucasfilm is going to spend the next ten or twenty years spackling over the holes in this nonsense. Which is great! Gives them something to do! At least my favorite character is already dead!

...yeah, I was shocked Kanan('s voice) was in this movie.

...okay, I hate hate hate "I am all the Jedi," I hated it. I'm sorry. That was bullshit. This is somewhat tied into my pre-existing issues on similar subjects, which I'll save for another time.

Jannah was wonderful, and I loved her bonding with Finn over both being ex-stormtroopers.

Rose got completely fucked over by this film and I'm upset about it; at the very least most of Dominic Monaghan's character's lines should have been hers. (Or gone to Kaydel Ko Connix.) I do like her costume though and I might try to build it, since it's basically my normal aesthetic but in space, and gods know it would be nice to have a SW costume that doesn't require a wig or body paint and is an Asian woman.

I continue to have problems with the lack of legacy aliens in these movies; I have no idea why Mon Calamari are the sole exception to this rule. (And Chewbacca.)

Chewbacca's wail and collapse when he heard about Leia ended me.

I'm really glad that, unlike TLJ and to some extent TFA, Chewbacca and R2-D2 both felt like characters rather than as props -- TLJ's treatment of Chewie really bothered me. But he mostly felt like a person here, and I think that's important. (Especially post-Solo, which did really well on that front.)

I think in a few places R2-D2 and BB-8 should have had their roles switched? Like at the beginning -- I mean, R2 actually was a Jedi droid! He probably knows at least a bit about the training material!

...wait. hang on. I just realized another plot hole, which is if Kylo/Ben flew an old school Imperial TIE fighter to Exogal from Endor (whatever that moon was called, but it's in the same system), then...he...TIEs don't have hyperdrives. This has been well-established. Jeez, again?

Zorii Bliss was fine but does kind of feel like an aggressive attempt to make Poe straight, and I don't love her costume, tbh. also if all you're going to show of her is her eyes I wish they'd made her a Pantoran or a Mirialan or something instead of a human, that wouldn't even be much body paint.

I really appreciated how many of the stormtroopers were voiced by women.

I liked Hux being the spy but I did not like his immediate death afterwards, and I think it was a real disservice to a trilogy main character to end him that way. I'd have preferred to see him pull an Agent Kallus and survive and escape, and then have to go on trial for war crimes in a sequel novel or comic, weigh his use as a spy against the wiping out an entire star system and also the New Republic government.

I appreciate how hard this film went towards establishing the main trio of Poe/Finn/Rey even if, honestly, it feels like it came out of nowhere? It's one of several "I'm glad it's there but tbh it makes very little sense." I hope OT3 fans are happy, though.

One of my recurring problems with the ST has been its unwillingness to acknowledge the prequels and unfortunately, this film really doubles down on it, the Jedi voiceover notwithstanding. At the very minimum, one of the planet shots (from the lightspeed skipping -- which, uh, gravity wells are a thing? -- or from the end sequence) should have been a PT planet, preferably Naboo or Coruscant. I would also have accepted Lothal, to be honest, but it was a really jarring lack when they went to the trouble of having Bespin TWICE and Ewoks. I can't take the ST seriously when they don't acknowledge half (or more than, tbh, counting TCW) the franchise.

I'm very glad that they didn't go all Dark C-3PO the way that the trailers and the promo suggested, and that R2-D2 took one look at him and went, "oh, jeez." Of course, doesn't really explain why Artoo didn't do so post-RotS, but maybe post-RotS he got really paranoid about it. And also uuuuhhhhh is C-3PO having programming to read but not translate Sith runes part of whatever program bby!Anakin shoved into him or does it date from a later period?

The Knights of Ren needed some kind of explanation.

Palpatine needed some kind of explanation. I know everyone's all "well, Maul didn't get an explanation in Solo" but Maul HAD an explanation well back in TCW! Oh, well, it'll get spackled over in the next ten years.

...as well as Palpatine's kid. I'm not sure whether to hope for genetic manipulation via Kamino or for them to recanonize Palpatine's harem, I feel that both are equally likely.

I'm glad that they leaned into Force-sensitive Finn.

One thing I didn't expect going into this film comes as a result from getting much more familiar with the SW cosplay community over the past year. A lot of the more outre visual stuff would have made me wince two years ago (and did with TLJ) but this time I kept having the thought, "There's going to be some amazing cosplay and cosplay photography coming out of this film and I'm genuinely happy for the cosplayers and photographers who do it." I can't wait to see Rey cosplayers do Rey vs. Dark Rey photoshoots, and I'm sure someone will do that opening scene of Rey meditating and floating and it will look cool as fuck. So it was kind of soothing to have that realization partway through the film. There's going to be some great art coming out of this movie. I'm genuinely happy for the people who do it and I'm excited to see the results.

(Did I actually like that scene? No! But it's going to be responsible for some amazing cosplay photography so I'm fine with it.)

also, good luck to the saber-makers, I'm sure many of them went straight from the theatre to their model design software and we'll start seeing the results in a few weeks.

My recurring problem with the set-up of this film, and which has been a problem since TLJ but which the ~feel good moment of all the ships arriving made worse, is that you have to work from the assumption that all these very good, very honorable people (especially if you believe the ship cameos like the Ghost) saw what the First Order was doing to the galaxy and heard Leia's call for help and were like "eh, not for me." And that's actually a big problem. (Resistance Reborn DID NOT help with this, by the way.) You kind of have to work from the base assumption that the entire New Republic views Leia Organa as a paranoid warmonger crackpot, which has been hinted at in some of the ancillaries, but which Lucasfilm is really unwilling to outright state. (Probably due to their hero worship of Carrie Fisher/Leia, which is actually kind of a recurring problem for me -- there are a couple factors here.)

I think one reason the scene with all the star destroyers crashing at the end on different planets felt off to me is that we never really got the sense that the First Order actually ruled the galaxy, so it's just like, uh, okay? this is happening? it's obviously meant to be a nod to people celebrating at the end of RotJ, but it didn't work for me at all.

the end scene is just, eh, whatever. was that supposed to be an eopie? it didn't look like an eopie. I think Rey laying the Jedi to rest might have felt better if she had done so at say the Jedi Temple (/Imperial Palace) or another Jedi site, but obvs they don't care about the PT. As has been said, the Lars residence isn't somewhere that Leia had any ties to whatsoever, so it feels odd.

I'm glad Rey made her own new lightsaber.

ultimately I do feel that like this film, more than the other two but alongside the other two, makes the first six movies of the saga kind of irrelevant? which bothers me a lot. but like, it's over now and Lucasfilm can get on with its spackle job and I could never take the ST seriously anyway. and my corner has been the animated side since 2013 so I'm just shocked it got any representation at all but relieved it didn't get more.

also, I had surprise dental work done yesterday and for a while there it was touch and go whether that or the film would be the worst part of my day, but fortunately it turned out to be the dental work.

Comments

[dhampyresa]

Haven't seen the movie yet (this Sunday!) but I hope you enjoy your holiday!

[bedlamsbard]

Thank you! I hope you enjoy (or at least don't hate) the movie when you see it!

[dhampyresa]

I did not hate it! (Posted some thoughts here if that's something you're interested in.)

Having now read your entry you brought up some excellent points -- the lack of any ackowledgement of the PT especially had passed me by (even though I love TCW). I haven't been keepng track with all the auxiliary canon so I didn't realise they'd been handling it that badly :(

I'm curious about your thought on Rebels S4, have you written about it somewhere?

[bedlamsbard]

My Rebels S4 thoughts are scattered through my Bedlam watches Rebels tag on Tumblr. I don't talk about it much in one very coherent space because, lol, Tumblr is a trashfire and I have to be in a very specific headspace to think about it that much; I literally couldn't for more than year without ruining my mood for the next couple of days.

[sixthlight]

The lack of acknowledgement of the prequels sat really badly with me, too. How neat would it have been if Kylo had tried to bond with Rey over their shared heritage from Naboo? Over the idea that there's a planet somewhere their ancestors came from that still exists, and is beautiful? That not everything about her biological heritage is Dark Side awfulness?

I was also surprised how well the movie sold me on his redemption, given how deeply meh I felt about it as a concept post-TLJ. But I think the acting (from Driver, Ridley, and Ford in that cameo) did a lot of the heavy lifting there.

Mostly I just feel like...there were lots of good bits, lots of meh bits, not a lot holding it all together, some real disrespect to characters like Poe and Rose, and despite the ridiculous length of the movie, no real room for it to breathe. It made me wistful for what a ST that wasn't simultaneously hooked on and allergic to nostalgia, and also had some sort of, uh, plan behind it, could have been.

[bedlamsbard]

"Simultaneously hooked on and allergic to nostalgia" is a really good way to put it, because I didn't think it was possible to do both but by gods they managed it somehow. I think the conversation I've seen about the ST being stories about Star Wars rather than Star Wars stories is where I lean -- I know there was some talk back when TFA came out about the film being the memory of the Star Wars you saw when you were seven and not the actual Star Wars. I...can't tell where TROS falls on that scale because it's just so over the top. It's like what people wish RotS would have been, maybe?

One reason the lack of PT acknowledgment bothers me, aside from the obvious, is because there was so much emphasis in the promo material about TROS ending the whole saga! and using themes from all six films! and then there just...wasn't any. (except the Jedi voiceover, and that's...I don't even know what to do with that.)

Driver did a really good job in the redemption, especially upon realizing that he never has a single line after Kylo's talk with Han. Which probably works better, tbh? But honestly his scenes were solid once he gets to Exogal (sp?).

[sixthlight]

“Stories about Star Wars” is such a good description - in that case I’d characterize TROS as the game of improv/childish RPG you play age twelve where you’re “yes, and then”-ing each other, constantly one-upping the cool factor, half-remembering the original plot, never stopping to make any of it consistent because it’s about the moment, not the story.

In a weird way it makes me reflect on the Jackson LoTR movies, where it’s possible to disagree with a lot of his choices, but they all still obviously came from a place of respect and love for the themes and characters. Whereas the ST was made by people who loved the spectacle and their vague memories of what it was about, but not the actual themes or even the characters as people and not plot devices - so of course they briefly considered hiring the GoT “themes are for eighth grade book reports” writers.

That’s an amazing observation about Kylo’s lack of lines post-saber-throw. That’s a LOT of acting to do with your face and body. In general another sad thing about the ST has been the quality of the actors involved vs the quality of the story (and often lines) they’ve been given to play out.

[bedlamsbard]

Oooh, yeah. It felt to me like round-robin storytelling -- to some extent like the old EU multi-author series, but I'm pretty sure that at least those had some kind of overarching story, and the ST...definitely did not feel like it had that. At all. Whatsoever. Which is mindblowing.

*nods* I was thinking about LotR and The Hobbit films too (though I still haven't seen the third Hobbit film, either). LotR is so respectful, as is the first Hobbit film, and then like -- Rogue One and Solo are too, I feel? They all seem to come from that similar place of love and respect and thoughtfulness, while this feels...not that. So the fact that they're all Lucasfilm movies but the ST feels like it has such a completely different approach than Rogue One and Solo really confuses me.

[starlady]

It felt like a video game so much, and on the level of "I like video games" I actually found it more enjoyable, moment to moment, than I was expecting. But like…the only character in this movie who didn't get done dirty is whoever Lin-Manuel Miranda was playing in his cameo at the end. Even Wedge, whose appearance was the only time I felt excitement or joy, got done dirty because his appearance was set right up against Snap Wexley's death. (I don't even care about Snap Wexley!)

I said on Twitter that JJ clearly took the old EU and snorted it, but at least the old EU had the courage of its fucking plot points in the NJO era. (I cannot believe that I am reduced to praising the NJO, which drove me out of Star Wars for ten years, but here we are.) The psych-out with Chewie not being dead was just…so bad and so emblematic of all of the problems.

That said, there were some good moments and I find it difficult to hate the OTT WTF nature of it all, and I do think there will be some good fic and tie-in materials. But the stuff with Poe was so bad. Like, come the fuck on, how lazy or desperate do you have to be to torpedo the canon backstory of your own characters!

[bedlamsbard]

The video game feel was VERY weird, and like, I like video games! (in the sense that I like watching playthroughs. but those are also like four hours and this was...not four hours. thank gods.) It was interesting because I was never actually bored? I can't tell if I liked it, which means I probably didn't, but I did enjoy myself while I was there.

I'll admit that if I hadn't known Wedge was going to be in this movie I wouldn't have recognized Denis Lawson, lol, but given Resistance Reborn I expected him to show up, like, earlier in the film? but obviously expecting anything from the ancillaries to actually be relevant in the films is a step too far.

Even the EU books that springboard wildly back and forth from author to author feel like they were at least slightly more consistent than this trilogy, in the sense that you can generally get the sense that there was some sort of overarching plan. (A good one? one that's always kept to? lol no, but still.) Like, as a single entry in the franchise, do I think that this one was actually more nonsensical than half the stuff in the old EU? Actually, no. But as part of the ST as a whole...I think a lot of the kind of thing that works in EU media really should not be in the films, and they stuffed so much of it into this one.

man, all they needed to do with Poe is have Zorii say "he used to be a spice runner" and Poe go "actually I was undercover!" which you KNOW the ancillaries are going to do within the next six months but holy shit. there wasn't even a REASON for it!

[independence1776]

(Here via your link from Tumblr.)

I really enjoyed this movie (and adore TFA), but I think that's because I decided two years ago that nothing Disney did with the OT characters or anything post-RotJ is canon, so I was able to roll with it.

But this: the canon to not be contradicting itself right, left, and sideways when Lucasfilm itself continuously makes a big deal over IT'S ALL CANON NOW!

One of the reasons I was annoyed with Disney canon when I got back into SW fandom at the beginning of the year (thanks almost entirely to SWR after TLJ nearly killed my love of SW) was how they claim everything is canon now. It meant that I felt I had to read everything to begin to even write fic. And then I started reading it, saw the tiny continuity errors that were creeping in even then, and went, "…You aren't making the effort to keep track of this stuff. Why should I care anymore?" And promptly carved out my own personal "this is canon and nothing else" from what I like of it. To be honest, I'm still annoyed at how interconnected everything has to be. And then outright contradicting Poe's backstory? Nope. Either walk the walk or just admit you don't care as much as you say you do.

It would have been so, so easy to keep the big giant ship-arriving moment and have people still acknowledged as caring if the First Order would have jammed Leia's transmission in TLJ instead. It's one of my major problems with TLJ, too. The PTB can't have it both ways about the First Order being secretive and also a major threat that may or may not rule the galaxy and that no one outside of a handful of people in a very large galaxy cares.

One of my recurring problems with the ST has been its unwillingness to acknowledge the prequels and unfortunately, this film really doubles down on it, the Jedi voiceover notwithstanding.

It didn't really hit me hard until you said it, but yes. I suppose I should be happy about that given how the ST messed up a lot of things. But still.

[bedlamsbard]

I feel pretty similarly about the post-RotJ material, and in many ways I do prefer the EU post-RotJ universe. It's been very hard for me to take the new canon version seriously because of the constraints their releases put on it, and I think at this point it will be different to see if that changes as a result of the ST finally being complete; now authors actually have space to breathe in this period without worrying about contradicting something in the ST. But on the other hand, a lot of the damage is done already and can't be walked back.

(And also, I got so burned that I'm now like "well, nothing after S3 of Rebels is canon enough to make me take it seriously," so that's...also a thing.)

Lucasfilm claiming that everything is canon when this is blatantly untrue is driving me up the wall; as recently as the day before yesterday one of the more accessible Story Group members was still saying on Twitter, bless the poor guy's heart for clearly being like "uh...we will...fix this...later" while neutrally saying something like "well, we wanted to keep this reveal for the film" and internally screaming. But as a fic writer it's exhausting, as you said, because why should I care when the people being paid actual cash money clearly don't care? I should not be going to more effort than someone who's signed a contract and is going to create Actual Canon (TM), and yet here we are. (Goes for characterization, too, the comics completely lost me last year after the disastrous mess Doctor Aphra made of Hera. Also the animal harm, which is not something I generally go into a Star Wars product expecting.)

Resistance has been trying to set up the First Order threat, and succeeding reasonably well insofar as their limitations go, but a lot of this should be in the films, you know? like, are they...an actual government? is there a government? what is going on. this is important. it affects how people react! it affects how the audience reacts to people reacting or not reacting! like, what is going on. they just went for spectacle and not thought.

The lack of PT ref messes with me because, IIRC, there was a reasonable amount of promo for this film that talked about how it would wrap up all nine films, that it would feel completely connected, and yet...no. So I kind of feel like I was bait-and-switched.

[independence1776]

I more or less grew up on the 1990s EU. And then I quit when NJO began because, among other reasons, Chewie's death. His fake death in TROS was a gut punch I neither wanted nor needed; it honestly feels cruel to me. So, I honestly do prefer the EU; it makes more sense to me, even with how bonkers it could be.

I have bounced off every single post-RotJ Disney canon book I've read. I've tried them and they do not work for me. The damage is done and can't be fixed for me. If we get something about Rey's parents, I'll likely try again because that's the only thing I remotely curious about. But that's it.

(Heh. I like the non-Lothal episodes, but the rest of the season I am irrationally angry about. It doesn't exist. Any of it.)

Oh goodness, I assumed that the Story Group had at least some inkling about it. Ugh. I haven't even posted any of my SWR fic and I'm fully prepared to have to justify some of my choices if I ever do post because I know this fandom. The canon writers should be more concerned than we are!

The only comics I've read are Kanan's. I adore them. But, uh, animal harm? That's a hard nope for me.

A lot of things needed to be in the films. Why they assumed the average moviegoer would pick up a book explaining something is beyond me.

I haven't watched Resistance and don't want to; I'm that unhappy with Disney's post-RotJ stuff.

I honestly paid no attention to the promos, so I don't know what was said. It really does feel like they wanted to forget the PT existed. They played it safe with this movie in some ways: let's write it so it's possible to never watch TLJ again (which I'm okay with); let's not mention the Prequels because a lot of people dislike them.

As much as I enjoyed the film, it has serious flaws. I'm not sure how much that has to do with its scriptwriter and how much to do with the overall approach Lucasfilm and Disney are taking.

[bedlamsbard]

My biggest EU influence was the Republic/Clone Wars comics that came out between TPM and RotS, but I didn't start reading them until almost a decade later. (I've got a somewhat weird timeline for my ~history in Star Wars in general.) So I didn't come to the post-RotJ novel side of EU until much, much later (possibly not until 2014?), and I was always cherry-picking what I read based on what authors I could stand, since I'm very picky about prose style. (Like, I only read Aaron Allston's novels and picked up everything else going on in the NJO and Fate of the Jedi and...the other series...from context. It's doable!)

I said on Twitter the other day that there were some specific details that I really appreciate about the post-RotJ EU that the new canon didn't decide to use, like the Alliance/New Republic use of TIE fighters and star destroyers as they were captured or defectors brought them over or whatnot. I just feel like there was a lot more richness and depth and complexity to the EU that's just not present in the new canon, which makes me sad, and that's even without getting into the bullshit that they've pulled with the OT characters. Who kind of just feel like...neutered to me? Muted. Faded. With Leia especially it feels like many of the writers, both book/comics/film, leaned way more towards Carrie Fisher than towards the Leia presented in the OT, and the same is true to a lesser extent with Mark Hammill and Luke and Harrison Ford and Han. If that makes sense? They feel...less genuine.

There is one perfect episode in Rebels S4 for me, and it is Flight of the Defender. But I really love the Loth-wolves, well out of proportion to how much I hate everything else going on in S4.

I'm not sure how much influence the Story Group actually had? It seems to be generally vague, and I get the impression that they may have had less influence for TROS than they did for TFA and TLJ.

The comics run the usual gamut between "really good" and "really bad" -- the Kanan ones are among my favorites, by the Han Solo comic by Marjorie Liu is INCREDIBLE, and Shattered Empire (from the Journey to The Force Awakens) is also really good. Doctor Aphra was fine under the original writer, then they switched writers and it got really bad (which makes me sad, because you'd think a disaster Asian archaeologist who kisses girls would be up my alley), but the animal harm of "genetically-engineered-to-explode tookas" in combination with the egregiously bad Hera characterization was too much for me.

Given how much material that is in the ancillary material is directly contradicted by the film they seem to be counting on the fact that the average moviegoer would not pick up the book explaining something. And a lot of the things that people have been going "uh, I guess this is explained in a book or a comic somewhere?" is in fact...not explained in a book or comic somewhere. LUCASFILM WHAT ARE YOU DOING.

You know, it's funny; I didn't pay attention to the promos either, but I somehow absorbed almost every piece of promotional and interview material? I'm not sure how that happened.

All that said, I can't say that I didn't enjoy it? I don't think I was ever bored and while I definitely can't say that I liked it, there were far fewer things I hated in it than I had anticipated there would be going in. I don't know. I'll be curious to find out what cut scenes there were, I think?

[independence1776]

I just feel like there was a lot more richness and depth and complexity to the EU that's just not present in the new canon, which makes me sad, and that's even without getting into the bullshit that they've pulled with the OT characters.

Yes! The worldbuilding in the EU was, as scattered as it could be, felt real. Yes, they brought in new things, but it still felt like Star Wars. One of my problems with the Disney novels is that they largely don't to me. There's not enough grounding in them. And the OT characters honestly feel OOC to me, which is one of the reasons I hate TLJ. (I've been a Luke fangirl since I saw the OT in the early/mid 1990s. What the ST did to Luke was not Luke Skywalker.)

All right, I'll try watching that one again. (I own the first three seasons and am thankful Disney+ means I don't need the fourth for only two episodes.) I haven't been able to bring myself to rewatch any of the Lothal episodes because I can't remember where a good stopping point is before pain turns to PAIN. I pretty much marathoned the show-- I got the DVDs from the library-- so my memory of what happened when is not good. Especially when I sat through the last third sobbing in utter denial.

I honestly had never read any comics (apart from stuff like Calvin and Hobbes and a couple of webcomics) before the Kanan comics. I had to learn how to read comics while reading them, so I was utterly confused at what was going on at first, and I needed to reread them a couple of times to understand them. They're my favorite non-show/movie canon now. I've been tempted to pick up the Rise of Empire-era Darth Vader comic because post-Purge Jedi stories are something I've loved since RotS (I'm still spoiler-free for Fallen Order), but it's not a priority. But, uh. Nope. I'm not touching the Aphra comic. Not with that.

I would like an answer to that, too. I'm so frustrated at this point. Maybe Lucasfilm will stop dancing around things now the ST is done, but I doubt it.

Yeah, I wasn't bored, either, and I do want the cut scenes! I'm simply glad I didn't hate it, because I fully expected to after TLJ. Most of the time, I just want my movies and stuff to entertain me. And that's what TROS did.

[bedlamsbard]

Yeah. I'm so confused about the choices made with the OT characterization, because it's just...really off? Which means I also sideeye everyone who tells me that they're so in-character, lolsob.

The Soule Darth Vader comics, the post-RotS ones, are pretty good. I have my issues with them -- some of the Inquisitor stuff makes me wince -- but there are some good arcs in there. (The Gillen ones taking place between ANH and ESB are also just called Darth Vader, and the ones coming out in 2020 are also just called Darth Vader. Marvel has a lot to answer for; Dark Horse never did this to us.)

Lucasfilm is just going to have to do SO MUCH spackling to make TROS make sense. And maybe they counted on that, but it's still not a great look. I don't know what they're doing.

[independence1776]

*sighs* Of course there's multiple comics with the same name. Thank you for telling me which one I need to look for. I just checked; my library has all of the trade paperbacks, so I'll get them from there.

I don't know what they're doing, either. At this point, I've decided they don't.