The following is a long rant I wrote about one week after seeing the movie that I sent to some friends. Obviously, it’s been a half decade since this came out, and the audience and critical consensus has settled into “that was awful” and “Someone X has returned” jokes, but I found this in my notes recently and figured I should dump it somewhere. So this was all fresh at the time with no backstage knowledge or Baby Yodas. And who doesn’t love a good foaming at the mouth nerd rant?

I) Preamble

My take: This is one of the, if not the absolute, worst Disney releases in the modern era. It’s the literal embodiment of “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” I’ll try and focus on the more “meta” problems - I’m not especially interested in “Leia should have a lightsaber” or “Finn should be force sensitive.” I think almost anything can be a good idea on paper as long as it’s earned. I’m going to start with the meta/challenges that made ROS a difficult writing challenge at best, and then work into how they completely fucked everything else. Also, this will totally devolve into bullet points at the end.

II) How Many of You Are There? Or “Dormammu, I’ve Come To Bargain”

Look, trilogies are hard to write. Creating a nine act cohesive story in a satisfying way is extremely difficult. Story 1 needs a victory, but can’t end the story. Story 2 needs to be somehow self contained. Story 3 needs the biggest climax and to wrap up everything. You need a mix of stories across movies, and stories within movies. You have to not feel like you’re spinning wheels or rehashing things. The original and prequel Star Wars trilogies actually kinda do this well on a structural level. Star Wars: ANH is the setup adventure that strikes the first blow. ESB is the counterpunch that deepens the universe and operates as a more character driven story. ROJ continues from the payoff of ESB, properly escalates the stakes emotionally and deals with a new set of resultant themes that evolved from before. Everything in ROJ is fundamentally based in ANH, and intensified in ESB. Furthermore, and this is a big one, ROJ didn’t feel the need to close ever single plot thread - there’s still an Empire to be defeated, but we feel they will. The emotional arc of the series closes with Vader’s redemption AND death. Most unplanned trilogies (like Batman, or Back to the Future) suffer from a lack of having any place to go (no bigger picture), or from escalating threat in scale as opposed to emotional intensity.

Now we’re going to make this more complicated by injecting multiple directors and script directions into a single trilogy. Disney can give their directors a pretty free hand, but I’m not so naïve as to think that there isn’t a framework they have to deal with, not to mention a metric shit-ton of studio notes. I’m genuinely surprised that TLJ had Rian Johnson still. Johnson and Abrams clearly have massively different directions they want to go (obviously, I’m with Johnson here). This is obviously going to clash. It’s not impossible to get this to work, but it’s really tough. It says something that the only things from TLJ that get used in ROS are 1) Snoake’s dead, baby and 2) Rey trained under Luke. Literally everything else pretty much never mattered. Themes are dropped, characters are reverting back, plot threads are resurrected. Classic example: who is the antagonist of the new series? First Snoake, then Ren, then Palpatine. Three “big bads” is too many. You can get one, maybe two. Three is right out.

The other downside of directing by committee: each movie is a reaction to the reaction to the previous one. TFA is empty copycatting? Make TLJ more character driven and a bit deconstructive. People didn’t like sad Luke? Go to full spectacle bombast! It’s a lot of people going “please love us, audience” and overcompensating with every flick. This might work for a standalone series like Bond (psst, it usually doesn’t, but my thoughts on Bond are probably another 10k words no one cares about), but not anything that needs a cohesive whole. It feels lurching and confused. This trilogy never had a sense of identity. Which brings us to . . .

III) Let GO, You Fuckers!

So, the issue with passing the torch is that you have to PASS THE TORCH. GET YER UNDEAD FINGERS OFF IT! Unfortunately, we can’t seem to let the new characters exist outside of the original ones. TLJ basically cleared the field for the characters to have their own motives and conflicts. Luke and Han are gone. But nope, we gotta resurrect Palpatine. Pretty much no character in the new trilogy exists without being motivated or defined by an OT motherfucker. Disney doesn’t seem to trust the series ability to stand without nostalgia. Let the characters do things! They’re good characters (except Rey)! But no, the big damn heroes moment is Lando (we’ll get to him) and the big villain is Palpatine (oh, we WILL get to him). This is not a series that ever escaped the OT shadow, mostly because it didn’t even try. TLJ at least tried to wrestle with this notion (hence “kill the past” as motif). The other two do not care. ROS is the movie that NEEDED to let them come to the forefront, and it totally whiffed.

Which finally brings us to the movie itself.

IV) NO BRAKES! LUDICROUS SPEED!

ROS has atrocious pacing. Like, straight up the worst I’ve seen in a big budget picture in some time. Let’s look at the opening sequences in order:

• Kylo Ren gets a montage finding the Wayfinder, then meeting Palpatine, is told to find Rey
• Poe and Finn are getting info from a spy
• Rey’s training course sequence

These are straight up emblematic of several of the recurring bits of fuckery in the pacing.

First, what kind of editor misses the obvious “find the girl” transition to Rey? Why is there a superfluous Finn/Poe scene in the middle. Switching those two sequences around should be obvious to literally anyone in media production. Find the girl –> Show the girl. That’s pretty goddamn simple.

But the real problem is after the frenetic opening montage - the movie literally never moves any slower than that. Every scene is fast and frenetic. Every shot is as big and dramatic as possible. The problem with this is that it wears out the audience. Scenes lose impact because they all they are at the exact same intensity. Climaxes don’t hit right, and you’re given no room for character development. Even famously balls to the walls action movies have breaks between sequences (A great example of this is Shoot ‘Em Up, a great movie that only exists to go above and beyond with campy action - and even it breaks them up). A lot of people are saying the particular details they liked or didn’t, but the movie has zero opinion on which things are emphasized. It treats the reveal of Palpatine or the death of Chewbacca with the same drama as finding a new droid or shooting a random soldier. The audience can’t feel the correct emotions. It’s like a coworker explaining how their boss is bad while yelling “and then they came in at their usual time.” Any time they get close to a quiet scene, the screenwriter’s cheat is to make Rey do something boneheaded and stupid. Look how the camera obsesses over that one resistance fighter whose entire job is to deliver generic “resistance guy says this” lines. Furthermore, things are so fast paced that things are set up only to be paid off within five minutes. Over and over and over again. Does the production team think we have the memories of goldfish?

Worsening the problem is what feels like a twelve act structure. There’s a very clear classic “third act” once they go to Sith Land, but everything before that fails to meet either a 3 or 5 act structure. It’s closer to the 5 act structure, but there’s still two extra acts in there because there’s too much stuff that just doesn’t need to be there. Example: why is there a whole scene where Poe and Finn learn about the spy? They added whole minutes of another chase sequence when they could have learned at rebel base right after Rey’s training. There are so many scenes could have been just cut because they serve zero purpose (looking at you, other former stormtroopers, or the guy who replaced General Hugs). And to be clear, I love big films with a big of fat around the edges and long as it’s satisfying fat (usually unnecessary characterization).

V) Look How They Massacred My Boy

Is it weird to say that Zombie Palpy (Sheev if ya nasty), is both the absolute best thing in the movie and yet is the core of why the script sucks? I love how Ian McDiarmid has a preternatural ability to recognize how good a movie he’s in, and he dials up the ham more the worse the movie is. He’s truly a wonder. The character here? So, so fucking bad and lazy. First of all, as mentioned above, his presence continues the “OT overshadows NT” vibe of it all. Second, he’s not even the same character? He acts completely differently, he has different goals, he’s coded as a different kind of villain. His role is even different- in ROJ he’s the tempter, the corrupter, a representational figure. Here, he . . . actually, I have no fucking clue what he’s doing. No idea. What’s his plan again? Let’s look at it.

• Postulate: our Palpy FUCKS (after I wrote this line I saw it everywhere, too good to let go) and had a kid at some point (this obviously isn’t impossible, but it opens a lot of questions. With who? On purpose? Why did the kid betray him, to point of selling the grandkid to literal slavers?)
• Postulate: Palpy sees a future where Rey exists as the Baddest Motherfucker and wants that power (fair, that’s basically his deal with Vader)
• Postulate: Palpy survived a Death Star collapse (sure, whatever, there’s no good answer here) and decided to not go back (or couldn’t) to being Emperor
• Postulate: Palpy knows about a hidden Sith planet no one else does - Palpy starts/finds a cult of Sith worshippers
• Palpy builds a literal fleet of Death Star ships in secret (the logistics of this are . . . Just insane. And lame. Stop it with the uberweapons! Also ships too stupid to leave the planet on their own. Except the one that did. WTF?)
• Palpy creates an . . . Apprentice? Minion? To go out and take over the galaxy for him (again, details of conquest unknown). Stays in hiding. Lets Snoake do the work.
• Have a minion carve the coordinates of a random dagger which includes the coordinates of a random item in a foreign language and acts as a weird puzzle map through wreckage to get a McGuffin he doesn’t want anyone to have. (What the Redwall is going on here? Why would anyone with a human brain DO this?)
• Snoake corrupts Ben Solo (is this part of the plan? Just a random bit of fuckery? No idea!)
• After Snoake takes over the whole galaxy and THEN dies, Palpy uses his ultimate force powers of radio waves to tell everyone that he’s alive. (I guess because Kylo took over for Snoake?)
• Get Rey to show up because of that (Go on . . . It’s weak as a plan before he knows she’s a Jedi, but maybe he knew somehow? Suspected to still be dumb.)
• Get Rey to kill him so he can possess her as a force ghost (WTF is this a thing? Never been explained. Seems to contradict literally every version of force ghosts, as well as make no sense in terms of how the Sith are ever explained? What does this have to do with a fleet of planet crushers, since you ALREADY own the galaxy )
• Become Empress of the Sith via Rey (WTF is Empress of the Sith? How is that different than what you are now? What even are Sith (more on this later)?)
• Backup plan: Okay, she won’t turn (mostly because he gave no reason to actually kill him), so I’ll just kill her (lolwut)
• Backup backup plan: Oh shit dyad, guess I’ll just slurp you dry (you can do that? Since when? What does that even mean? Why did you need to be killed then?)
• Achievement unlocked: Palpy wins, I guess? Whatever wins means?

Throughout all this, I have no clue what my boy Sheev wants as an overall goal. That means characters reacting to him is basically impossible. His plan makes no sense at all. He’s effectively already won. Why be so damn dumb? And then he dies from a callback. All it takes to kill him is two lightsabers - something that basically contradicts the callbacks, where bouncing lightning is heavily implied to be a machination of his own which he survives. But Rey can just hold up two glowsticks and he just dies? WTF? What happened to that whole “kill me and you’ll join the dark side and be my bitch” thing? Her solution was . . . Killing him and NOT being his bitch?

That being said, why does he get all the nice chairs? He’s up to three of my favorite seats of cinema (ROJ window chair, ROS Sith Throne, ROS cyberpunk manholder). Also, since ROJ his force lightning powers have gone from “shock a Jedi so it hurts” to “electrocute an entire invading fleet.”

Oh shit, that means it’s time for -

VI) His Power Ratings Are Off The Charts!

The Abrams entries are big on “upping” previous movies by using big splashy force powers and even bigger superweapons, making Jedi basically gods. This movie has so goddamn much power creep. I have an unofficial rule of thumb that “anytime people in SW media start pulling on flying ships, we’ve gone too far” because they weird detail is inevitably the sign that the story is about Jedi as power fantasy and/or superhero rather than character. (Personally I prefer to treat Jedi powers like Qi in Chinese media - it makes you badass as fuck, but not invincible/invulnerable, just gives you extended human abilities.). But now we have people at the level of electrocuting entire battlefields (side effect: this makes Palpy more powerful post death than he was in ROJ). It’s just . . . Why do you need anyone who’s not a Force user? It makes everyone else’s contributions basically meaningless. It’s flashy, but it’s unsatisfying - this is a common problem with bad sequels, where intensity comes through MOAR SPECTACLES. It’s an impossible escalation path which WILL turn your series into a DBZ style cartoon as people yell their power names. This is also the logic that makes bad writers go “what’s scarier than a (third) planet killer? A whole fleet of planet killers!” It either cheapens the first threat when they go down easy, or cheapens them when they all go down like a bitch. Furthermore, the power creep of force ghosts makes me wonder why the ghosts can’t just fight the war? Luke can obviously affect the real world from beyond. Is there a Jedi/Sith ghost war going on in the afterlife? Why isn’t he still a general? It actively breaks the universe’s grounding and rules.

Power creep sucks, and in my opinion is actually really easy to avoid if you know what you’re doing or care about characters.

VII) The Internet Wrote This Movie

You know who cares about the characters? Tumblr! I apologize for this segue.

But seriously, this movie has a huge problem with being forced to provide answers to questions it never cared about in the first place. The dominant question being asked by the screewriters isn’t “what would the characters do” but “what does the audience want to see.” At a high level this is a decent set of questions, but it can’t write your entire story. The most obvious issue with this way of writing stories is that fact that it adds things that don’t need to be there and don’t service the story - witness the absurd amount of callbacks and fanservice in the movie. Did we need to see Ewoks celebrating at the end? What purpose does that serve?

You can see this sort of logic show up with all of the relationship dynamics in the movie. Finn is implied to have a thing for Rey. Poe gets weird about it. Later, Poe gets an old flame added who he tries to get with. Finn gets a debatable love interest in the form of a horse girl with a bigger version of the same backstory. Rey and Kylo want to hold hands! Then they kiss! Then he dies! Long story short, this movie engages in the worst form of ship baiting (for the unaware, just in case - the teasing of romantic relationships). Literally every form of relationship could be canon, up to and including Rey/Finn/Poe based on the hug at the end. But the only one that might be even a little confirmed is ended with a death (see ya, Solo). This lets each and every internet shipper claim that their version is canon. And if everyone is canon . . . no one is.

This version of writing leads to a lot of “sexy lamps,” including ones that aren’t sexy! For the uninitiated, a “sexy lamp” is when a character (usually female and/or a love interest) could be replaced with a sexy lamp and it wouldn’t change the story. It’s a way to refer to a lack of character agency. While not necessarily sexy, a list of random lamp characters includes, the Knights of Ren, the Horse Girl, Lando, and I would argue Rose (Also Chewbacca, but he’s been a lamp for most of his OT appearances too. He’s more for color than anything else). Why are any of these people here, much less repeatedly?

Answer: the internet knows the EU. Now Disney two audiences to serve - families and folk who have only seen the movies, and the crazy bastards who know all the comics and spinoffs and trivia (often picking and choosing which parts of it are headcanon). That second group fucks shit. I say this as a guy who knows exactly why Wedge Antilles matters, thinks Thrawn is a fuckin’ badass, roots for Mara Jade to show up, and thinks Vergere and Kreia are actually a lovely characters who aren’t Sith. (I also think the Vong are good campy fun, but didn’t need to be around for ten goddamn years). Bonus points for if any those references make sense to you. Yes, I’m that nerd, fuck off. But now we have the filmmakers trying to jam these cool things in with no thought for if they make sense to the original audience. They think reference is enough to make them cool (or even if they were cool in the first place).

A short list of things stolen from the EU without understanding how/why:

• Sith as race/religion - in the original EU, there’s like fifty versions of the Sith, despite only being around 20 years or so in the real world. There’s the Sith as an ancient race, there’s the Sith as a religion of darksiders similar to Jedi, there’s the Sith Order from the prequels which only has two members at a time. (Although depending on writer, that takes a VERY loose definition of who counts as Sith. Dooku has like a hundred lightsaber minions who totally aren’t Sith. And there are implied other pairs. And fake deaths. It’s very comic-book-y). Regardless, this isn’t known to any of the general audiences. It’s just jammed in - where the previous Sith as described as dark side Jedi, now we have cults and thrones and general WATery more fitting a shitty fantasy movie. They don’t explain it, it’s just there.
• The Sith planet, Ex-corgi or whatever (poor dog, I knew Sith kicked puppies but that’s too far) - this is exactly Korriban from the EU. Korriban is something of a recurring fixture in SW media because, bluntly, it’s awesome. Source of the original Sith people, cloaked in the Dark Side, it’s basically a giant evil DnD dungeon - perfect for tomb raiding, hidden secrets, mystical happenings, and colorful characters. I’d love to see it as a setting in a movie. And it always looks exactly like Ex-corgi, giant statues and everything, though more red desert than grey rock. So the writers just ripped off Korriban to run with the whole Sith as religion(?) thing. But again, this ties in with no themes and definitely no plot continuity. How was this supposed to make sense to anyone.
• Knights of Ren - the lampiest of sexys, they just get foreshadowed randomly, and then go down like bitches in about ten seconds. They’re only there because a large number of internet fans seem to love them and otherwise serve no purpose. They waste screen time and attention and if you cut them nothing would change.
• “The Emperor Returns” - oh Lord, I . . . Knowing the EU makes this choice even worse. Long story short, there’s a famous early comic series in the EU where the Emperor comes back as a force ghost and possesses Luke so he goes Dark Side. Sound familiar? This story is known and cherished in the EU, but more as campy “lol, that happened” fun than approval. Pretty much everyone thinks the story is bad. And yet - that story no one likes, half because of the concept, is literally the basis (maybe) of Palpy’s devious scheme. Why rip off a shitty story? That’s like creating a My Immortal movie because fandom “loves” it and thinking the love is sincere.

VIII) 3D Characters Rendered in 2D

Yeah, this section is really gonna hurt. Let’s break down everyone’s characterization and arcs:

Rey sucks. I’m sorry, I want to be in the bag for representational everygirl, but she really sucks. In TFA she’s an OP Mary Sue (I’ll die on this hill), in TLJ she’s actually a decent everygirl with motivations and reactions (and they do try to retro justify her crazy powers). Here? She’s an impulsive, arrogant, stupid, bland bit of fuckery. Let’s look at the classic hooks of character - what does she want? What does she need? I can’t answer either. What about Rey changes from beginning to end of the movie? What dramatic question is answered? (“Who’s your daddy and what does he do?” does not count.). There’s some lip service towards “I’m scared I might go dark side” for no reason and “I have abandonment issues from my parents”. But neither is actually used in the plot or to motivate her. In the first half of the movie she just impulsively runs off and does stuff (high point: going surfing in a storm instead of waiting 12 goddamn hours), and then just continues doing that. She never changes. She never learns. Her ending beat about changing her name is just . . . Silly. It’s portrayed as a climatic moment, but we never saw her struggling with anything (minus “I wrecked the Wookie”).

Kylo Ren gets the closest thing to an arc in this movie. Which is impressive because he starts this movie as effectively a completely different character. In TFA, he’s a whiny Vader fanboy (I love him, but he’s got no arc there). In TLJ he goes from whiny fanboy to someone who wants to burn the past and remake the galaxy in his preferred image (which makes sense, and is a great villain motivation). Here, he begins as the least involved Supreme Leader ever. His empire gets usurped out from under him the exact second he switches sides, even before anyone knows about it. I do like his early motivation of “I need you to help me shank the Emperor,” it’s a good setup and keeping with the character. But that gets dropped instantly and then he randomly converts. And his conversion is random as fuck. All he needed was Rey to heal him, have his mom literally say his name, and conjure his dad’s “memory” to pretend to give him forgiveness and boom, self sacrificing hero. WAT? Even assuming that the Han scene was supposed to be Leia, we never really se him questioning himself at all so the “I forgive you” moment feels like an arbitrary flip. “Shit, I killed Dad when he tried to save me, but since you’re my favorite parent I’ll listen to you!” And then he sacrifices himself to save Rey in a beat that shouldn’t have been needed (I’m literally not sure what she died from, it wasn’t the life suck or Ren would be dead). He doesn’t actually contribute to the final fight itself, just the aftermath. His meta arc was pretty much dropped on the ground and then he gets lightsided because it’s the expected thing to do with him.

Finn. Finn never changes. Fallout jokes aside, he didn’t really have an arc in TFA. TLJ gives him one, but it’s kinda retroactively making him the kind of person to jump ship. Still better than nothing, which is what he does here. Finn has no arc. His “I need to tell Rey something” is forgotten after two scenes. He doesn’t grow or change. He gets Force pings that are plot inconsequential, he starts the movie with a gun and weird attachment to Rey, then he gets a bigger gun and a weird attachment to Horse Girl. He has no meta arc, or even an individual one. It’s absolutely the most wasted character basis, because they REALLY do not care about that whole former stormtrooper thing despite it having almost unlimited character potential. Fuckers.

Poe is not quite as bad. They at least pretend to give him an arc. After not existing in TFA and getting dickslapped hilariously if stupidly in TLJ, they set him up as “why do you have these shady skills?” Which is then answered two scenes later. Then we move on to “I’m insecure about being General.” Which is dumb because we never see him be insecure before, quiet the opposite. And his solution to being insecure is . . . Make someone else co-general. Why did Leia pick this guy? Because he’s Han-like? Han wasn’t a real general either, in my opinion (maybe a one star to everyone else’s three star). I do actually like his backstory of “former criminal” even if it is a bit derivative of Han and they do literally nothing with it. No idea why he went Resistance. Oscar Isaacs knows how to steal scenes, I love him as an actor, but Lord just cut the character.

General Hugs (he will always be this to me), who I have a shameless soft spot for, is a delight in every movie. He’s just so petty and sneeringly campy evil. He’s the voice of empire, and could be whatever they need to be a foil to Ren. In fact, that’s his job in TFA! He’s the guy that Snoake pits against Kylo Ren in an again delightful (to blackhearted ol’ me) recreation of abusive dynamics. In TLJ he has to deal with his position as the favored being usurped and has to deal with fallowing a guy he hates. Him being the spy in ROS is actually pretty good and in keeping with his pettiness. You’d think this would be used to make him suck up to Emperor and backstab Ren, but no. He gets unceremoniously offed and replaced by a rando new villain for really no reason. Why? I literally have no idea, other than “we needed someone closer to Tarkin to match the Empire”. Good-bye, Hugs. I’ll always be holding for you.

Threepio. That’s right, fuckin’ Threepio. I don’t know if you’d call this an arc (he’s always been a comic relief character), but there’s a lot of emotional weight attached to his mindwipe. I mean, the entire premise of the mindwipe is SUPER forced and contrived, but I guess they decided they needed ANOTHER sendoff for a major character. Problem 1: He’s fine. Yeah, he lost his memories, but he doesn’t get killed, he actually gets more screen time than before. He’s got the same personality. That did all that work to make his death suck, and look he’s mostly back! Problem 2: . . . Aaaaaand his memories are magically back. This makes all that effort the screenplay put into killing him completely wasted. He’s exactly the same. No send off at all, I guess?

Leia. Oh Leia (Is she a Queen yet? I get that Alderaan is kaboom, but you think she’d upgrade her title at some point.). I get that the writers are limited by Carrie Fisher croaking, but come on. This movie manages to make Leia, the closest thing to a symbol of wisdom in this trilogy into a complete bonehead. All it took was one flashback scene. Supposedly Leia sees the future and realizes her son is going to die from something evil. (I’m also not really sure how I feel about her kicking Luke to the ground, one hand it’s in totally character, on the other it’s kinda odd given their power levels ) For the sake of charitable reading, let’s assume she just gets a vague feeling and nothing specific, because if she saw anything else she’d be even dumber. Her response is to quit being a Jedi (how does that help?) and do nothing. And then Luke dramatically buries her lightsaber by . . . Shoving it in his wall.

The whole galaxy has my favorite arc. The go from “no one will help” to “everyone will help” for literally no reason. That would be a good plot thread, convincing people to resist. And then they’re capable of overthrowing the entire First Order basically overnight. Why the fuck didn’t they do this at the beginning of the movie, before Palpy magically takes over the radio waves? I hate this. It actually cheapens the heroes victory. It makes almost every single person in the universe look like a tool. My personal headcanon is that Lando went and seduced all their leaders, because that literally makes more sense than anything else and is funnier to boot.

But my favorite moment of “what the fuck is even a character?” is actually Helmet Hotpants (I don’t remember her name, just the helmet and the tight pants). She gets a completely badass intro, instantly elevates the movie with one of the best scenes, is one of my favorite character archetypes (I love “you left me for dead” rogues), and yet one scene after wanting to blow his brains out she’s offering her chance at better life to him with no strings attached? She just rolls over. And yet still lives when her planet is nuked. And joins the resistance later. All for no reason! Not a good enough butt for this bullshit.

IX) Worst. Scene. Ever.

There is a worst sequence in the movie and it’s the Sith bounty hunter ship. I’m going to work through all the ways it, well, doesn’t. It’s an excellent example of how to fuck up film language, character choices, and basic screen writing 101. This is where the bullet point hell is really going to kick in.

• They get to the ship. This is fine.
• Rey says she feel Kylo Ren’s presence. Says she has to go out and face him. Finn and Poe are just weirdly accepting of this? They don’t offer to help or really try to stop her. She basically just said “I have to face him because the script says so” and they go “okay, because we are slaves to the script.”
• We see the Knights of Ren get a dramatic appearance. This means they were already at the ship when people arrived (since the heroes just got there), which makes no sense (insert Emperor’s New Groove gif) because no one knew the heroes were going there.
• Kylo Ren appears and tries to run down Rey. Maybe? He’s implied that he doesn’t want to kill her in a scene before this, and she could just crouch dodge him. The admittedly very cool scene where she flips and takes out the ship is weakened because we don’t know what he wants from her, or what she’s trying to achieve. No one in the scene has clear motivations, and that makes it hard for the audience to cheer for anyone.
• Somehow, no one in the Sith ship sees the exploding fucking TIE fighter, because they do not react to it and in fact -
• Chewbacca, knowing that Ren is coming and therefore more troopers, slowly and casually walks out of the Sith ship and gets jumped by guys who are behind the ramp. He doesn’t even have a gun out! Has he accepted his death? Chewie, are you okay? Do you get heatstroke in deserts? The camera has to work some to make it look like he can’t see the troopers either, they come from an angle he actually looks towards for a second before they get the drop on him (+4 to attack/damage). This is a cheat of filmmaking, but generally considered a tolerable if lazy one.
• Ren walks away from an exploded spaceship as if nothing happened. Not even affected. Is this supposed to be cool? Real men walk off explosions? Wounding him would at least make the fight interesting.
• We see Chewbacca getting loaded into one of two transports. How did no one see or hear these arrive? They’re in an open desert! There’s no way anyone could have missed them except maybe Rey. This is where the camera is working overtime to cheat our eyes. It makes the ships look “hidden” behind the Sith ship rock, but it only works if the audience can’t think outside the camera. Any camera angle but the exact one they chose would show the two ships. Everyone can see them, EXCEPT the audience, and we’re supposed to believe that because we can’t see them, no one else can? What am I, a Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal [citation required]?
• The troopers seem to assume that Chewie is the only person around. They don’t go into the ship. They know there’s a squad of rebel scum in the area, they find one fuzzy malcontent and decide that’s enough. I guess he’s “the usual suspects.” (Also no one hears this outside or notices he’s not back. The second is forgivable, the first is debateable.). What was the second transport even for? There’s not enough guys on the ground for it to be for just troops. Oh, right, it’s so that we have a screenplay backdoor way to make this a fakeout.
• One of the ships (the audience knows there’s two, though, and is probably wondering about the other one) takes off and we get a force fight between Rey and Ren. This is fine, cinematically speaking. Wish I could have seen Chewie’s face during that, though.
• Rey randomly blows up the ship, pretty much out of the blue. There’s no build up, just sparky sparky boom boom (apologies to Die Antwoord). This is meant to be shocking, yes, but the audience is confused about what happened. Rey runs into the ship, and we get no explanation. Did she do it on purpose? Did she pull on the dark side? Did she push too hard? We don’t know what happened, so we don’t know how to react. The uncertainty is great for the initial beat, since it’s shocking and confusing, but you can’t leave it on that.
• What the fuck happened to the second transport? If it took off first, they would have seen it in the sky. If it took off right after, they would have seen it in the sky. If it was still on the ground, Rey would have seen it running back or our heroes would have seen it while flying off. This is the problem with relying on “camera perspective” cheats too heavily.
• Our heroes leave. They are sad. End of sequence. Whatever. Everything is still super fast paced, so we can’t actually feel for and grieve everyone’s favorite grumpy rug.
• After doing all that work to effectively kill Chewie in the audience’s mind, the literal next cut shows Chewbacca alive and . . . Well, not fine, but he’s not an electrocuted corpse. But to the audience, this is just toying with our emotions - “oh god, they just killed Chewie I think, REY killed Chewie, what the fu- oh wait, he’s fine. Huh. Okay then.” We can’t fall into the movie if it’s not allowing to feel things.
• Retroactive continuity problem: in a later scene, Rey feels Chewie’s presence from a planet away. Why couldn’t she feel him here? This is more forgivable, plenty of great movies cheat in that way. My neighbor used to say “it only needs to work the first time” when it came to editing calls. But it reveals the general lack of care

Reminder that this scene is . . . 8-10 minutes? At best? This is the kind of filmmaking I expect from a bunch of high college kids in the 1970s with one beater camera and borrowed cash for film strips. Not the most powerful storytelling corporation in the world. Almost every single thing that happens is bad storytelling, and even the parts that are basically fine feel uneven. Everything feels blurry and forced - on a plot level, on a character level, on a cinematography level.

X) Random Nerd Ranting

• I hate young CGI Leia still. Looks dumb. Not a fan of young Luke either. Moving right along . . .
• On a more serious note, if one of your actors is dead and you only have discarded footage, maybe don’t try to use her as a central character and force her dialog into scenes? If you have to use her, kill her quickly in the first act, dammit! (Rey could have killed her by accident instead of Chewie in a dark side moment.)
• Out of nowhere villains are always bad. Palpatine is a dumb choice, and his resurrection cheapens the original climax slightly (less than people are saying, though, because the climax wasn’t really about “punch out the Emperor”)
• I fucking told you (generic you) that Rey’s parentage was always a big nothing with no plans or ideas. Who cares that she’s Palpatine’s granddaughter?
• What the fuck was Han? Not a force ghost (no effect). They say a memory, but he talks in way he never did before and Ren talks back. That’s so stupid. I suspect that scene was supposed to be Leia talking to him and they couldn’t rewrite it.
• The cracked Kylo Ren mask is stupid to me. Yes, symbolism, but it looks stupid, the chimp is a weirdly lazy star wars design, and there’s no reason to go back to the mask at all after TLJ.
• The title is . . . So bad. It’s overtly “mystery box” bating. And it doesn’t even happen. What Skywalker “rises?” Ben? At best? But he dies. Not great at rising!
• Sith Rey is pointless. I get that it’s an Empire callback, I get the intent behind the scene (I might go dark!), but it’s such a quick flash that it’s wasted.
• The training droid fuckery is just some petty goddamn bullshit. Weirdly, it feels like something old Kylo would do, but not this version.
• Lightning is genetic! How the fuck are force powers genetic? Since when? (Since the originals implied it, actually, but I think we all agreed to ignore that)
• WTF is the Throne of Sith? Who does it represent? Are there actually a Sith people? The thing’s existence contradicts every bit of Star Wars lore about Sith to date. Completely pointless.
• No droids speak Sith . . . But . . . WHY? Why not? Did the Emperor want his own personal language? Did the Jedi ban it? Neither makes sense. It’s stupid and contrived.
• Fuck the Knights of Ren being completely pointless, just because Tumblr wanted them in. They never did a single thing that couldn’t have been done by random other Red Guards.
• Why is the new black character coded “native?” Why is she only allowed to interact with other black characters? Why is she the new love interest (maybe?) for Finn? Like, yeah, she’s hot, but why is there this race box? What the fuck is that last scene she has with Lando, what does that even mean? Is that creeping romantic flirting? Paternalistic bonding? No clue!
• Why were the other ex-stormtrooper people involved at all? Why introduce a character to resonate thematically only to completely drop it one scene later
• Why does the Hobbit Man get all the lines that should be Rose’s? How does Disney feel about this character? (I also remembered her being dead after TLJ, post another shitty kiss, so I’m probably less affected, mostly just confused)
• Why did Disney introduce characters seemingly to specifically act as “no, Poe and Finn are completely straight” foil and ALSO focus on the lesbian kiss so hard (no, not great representation, but the camera stares right at it)? I don’t understand how Disney felt less homophobic in the 90s than now when they’re TRYING to add representation (and yet also burying it weirdly).
• Fake Yoda (that weirdo lady with Chewbacca wood) is back to odd characterization. She had two personalities in TFA, TLJ ran with the interesting one, ROS switched back to “weirdly wise all knowing old lady who knows too much force shit.” (I’m definitely biased by hating the “wise mentor” trope, much bigger fan of the “grumpy or trickster mentor” like OG Yoda or TLJ Luke)

XI) I can like stuff! Honest!

• Look, if you’re going to bring back Palpy, you might as well do it this way. Make a quick early callback via the “powers some consider unnatural”. Just sweep it under the rug, and move on. I’m reminded of Iron Man 2: “I’m here, it’s me, let’s just move on.”
• Most of the background stormtrooper barks were female. Good. More representation amongst evil minions matters!
• There are some actual moments of good subtle fanservice - the return of porgs, Wedge Antilles coming back. That’s how you do it right, just add them in a beat where you could put anyone else. Those work because they’re not distracting.
• The lightsaber flight in the wreckage of the Death Star is a great goddamn concept
• The flip to cut off the ship wing is great. Wasted, underplaying, and forced, but great.
• I love Kylo going “oh you found the MacGuffin? Nope!” -blows it up-
• Babu Frick is cute, yes - although he’s in completely the wrong scene and ruins the drama of the Threepio mind wipe. Took me a bit to come around, but I acknowledge the cute. Disney’s contribution to cute things in Star Wars is actually pretty solid, in that they are effectively cute.

XII) Just Throw some Duct Tape on It

What follows is a shit-ton of theorycrafting, and should be taken as illustrative of direction rather than “the writers should do what I say” arrogance

Could this have been salvaged? To a certain degree, yes. A lot here is really bad, but here are some arcs or fixes for what they had that they already had the basis for themselves. These wouldn’t fix everything, but they would provide a more solid footing. And they provide me, personally, with a sense of excitement and awesome. (Permit me my arrogance here, dammit, I love doing shit like this. Deconstruction in service )

Instead of magic radio wave Palpatine, make him the magic creature behind Snoake. Have Ren find his communicator and kick off a similar plot. That way, the core plot is Undead McDiarmid vs Ren, with the Resistance caught in the middle. Need a “bigger threat?” Introduce a new Sith Order in hiding under Palpatine. Even better, make them a Palpatine cult WITHOUT the man in black hanging around to keep the legacy theming going. They can act as a counterpoint to Rey/Ren then. (Obviously needs a total script rewrite). If you REALLY want Palpy, save him for the end reveal. I’d prefer a female face for the Sith cult, just because Star Wars villain parts are always the best and we need to get some women in there who aren’t Darth Talon (google that for disappointment. There are actually a lot of decent female EU villains). I’d also love for them to absorb some of Luke’s other apprentices from the past. It also gives you a non-lame place for Snoake to come from. You can even use real Korriban then! More Sith also seems more intense a threat than more Death Stars.

Rey starts getting arrogant because so Force strong, fucks up and causes an issue that kills Leia (make it not all her fault, like there’s a First Order attack going on). Tempt her with the Dark Side, have her shoot the lightning once. This kicks off her self loathing arc, make her the destined child of former Palpy cult member or something if you REALLY need that. It also gives her a reason to want to redeem Ren - it represents her own redemption. (Also justifies the Throne of the Sith stuff). For extra fun, have her turn dark and Kylo Ren light, and make him live instead of her! (audiences would absolutely fucking hate this, but it’s a great place to leave the universe for future writers)

Finn gets the General arc and has to deal with the realities of Resistance. Good reason to clash with Poe. It fits Finn best because it’s his path from stormtrooper to rebel general that is the most satisfying. Make folk not trust him too much.

Poe doesn’t really need an emotional arc, honestly. He just needs to be sent to get reinforcements for the final battle. That applies tension to the final battle and makes you wonder if they will show up. Maybe he has to convince and old crime ring that they can help, that’s the source of the backup forces. Room for backstory and philosophy. Send both him and Finn if you want to make the crime ring filled with ex stormtroopers. Or even for just efficiency.

Hux continues to be a slimy worm - have him get in bed with the Resistance to undermine Ren, then throw in with the Sith Cult after supplanting him. Nothing better than “I am Supreme Leader Hux” only to get either blown up or get shown up by the Sith Cult. He can still be the spy but he’ll actually play his game to the end.

Kylo Ren gets a full arc with this setup - he starts off trying to remake the galaxy, but the more force he applies, the more the resistance grows. Have him get shown up again, maybe deposed my be not? He tries to lure in Rey to help him overthrow the Sith cult. Both end up together again fighting for each others soul, since these are some of the best scenes in the latest trilogy. Have Ren look out at the universe and acknowledge that he’s just repeating history in a bad way, that reverence for the past is terrible, but we can’t escape it (Gatsby Star Wars, sucker). Then send the two of them to fight the Sith cult. Let him die during the fight there. If you don’t want to redeem him, you don’t need a another villain.

Lando’s part is bunk. If you really want him in there, just have him show up with information from the spy, then replace Leia with him. Maybe he’s another hook to the crime ring (being shady was his initial game).

In terms of breaking the first order, first do the Resistance showing up to strike at the First Order and then unifying against the Rebels as the Sith take over. Have the Resistance do a last stand while waiting for their fleet to show up, have them crush First Order high command + Sith Cult. Remember, ROJ didn’t magically destroy the Empire it just broke their core. Resolving all the personal plot threads would be enough I think. It feels like victory and that’s most import. This section needs more polish, I think, but it gets the idea across.

Stop the ship teasing. Don’t do a romance arc, do friendship/relationship arcs. They tend to be better and more satisfying, as well as less limiting. Star Wars is NOT good at romance, there’s a not a single good one (not even Han/Leia, fight me). Leave it for the shippers. Although if you have to, Poe/Finn makes the most sense (although I suppose we’re tied to Finn/Rose, annoyingly). And while I’m getting everything I want in my fantasy Star Wars league, give me a Mara Jade cameo! Make her a part of the Sith Cult who survives. I don’t care that she’s the wrong age or can’t have a thing with Luke in current continuity, she is a goddam awesome badass and exactly what the movies need in tone.

Now, obviously, you could still make a horrible movie with these choices. Writing is hard after all, it’s never as simple as “just do X.” But I think what you’d get here is a bigger feeling universe with a set of actual characters to follow through an adventure. (although if you added everything it’s real bloated).

XIII) May The Lord Have Mercy On My Soul

Okay, I’m done here. This should cover most of my analysis. There’s plenty more that irks me but it’s all variants of the core structural arguments. I maintain that anything CAN work, even THAT KISS if you do the work and ground it in character. That being said, you have to do the damn work. ROS is a movie where no one did any work, where JJ Abrams worst instincts went rampant (even more than I expected). I can only dream of Rian Johnson’s future trilogy (no idea if it will actually happen, given the current strategy of shitting on it in the marketing). But congrats, here’s far too many words (it literally slowed down the OneNote app) on Star Wars, almost certain with more thought than they put in. I think as time goes I’ll soften on it, given my love of big colorful bullshit movies. But it’s just so goddamn weird that Disney, who’s bad output tends to the more formulaic and flat (hello, Marvel and live remakes), make something that just functionally doesn’t work here at all on any level.

My only regret is not getting a “Jesus Falls for the First Time” joke in there somewhere.