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this post was submitted on 04 May 2026
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I know it's been beaten to death but I just finished re-watching all 9 + rogue one, and can confirm there's no reason for anyone to go back to the sequel trilogy. TFA gets some credit as a solid popcorn flick but doesn't change the fact it's retreading ANH, just to have every original story beat crushed by TLJ. By the time I got to Rise of Skywalker I was totally checked out, it's just noise and explosions with a plot that is borderline incomprehensible.
Disney pitch room:
"Okay, hear me out. What if: ... a bigger Death Star!"
"Excellent! What will we call it?"
"Hmm... how about Star Killer!"
"GENIUS."
The best part about the whole modern star wars franchise is the endless parodies mocking them.
Rogue One is the only one of these new movies that I really enjoy and re-watch. I really didn't expect Disney to allow that ending for the rebels sent Scarif but I'm glad they did. I also kinda love how they blend it into Episode IV.
And I think Transformers 2 is one of the greatest films of all time, up there with The Godfather and Citizen Kane.
You can just say you didn't like Rogue One you don't need to be sarcastic about it.
TLJ is what I think gave the sequel trilogy... hope.
TFA is very much a nostalgia grab re-tread of ANH. Which is the point. Evil has come back and something something it rhymes.
TLJ is all about breaking the cycle. The hero? She isn't a chosen one. She is a random unhoused garbage goblin. The reluctant hero? He isn't coming back for selfish reasons (wanting to bang Leia) and is instead realizing that he is part of something bigger than him. The confident scoundrel? He got told quite definitively that he is a childish moron who gets people killed and to do better.
And Luke? if he was really The Chosen One... why did everything repeat? The stories of our parents aren't gonna solve things so let's try something new. Let's democratize force powers. Let's ACTUALLY fight against tyranny.
And then China allegedly got pissed and Disney had JJ come back to undo everything in the first 30 minutes of ROS. And only really succeeded in making a movie that EVERYBODY hates.
That said? Rogue One and Andor were somehow snuck in there and those are very much a Star Wars made for people who grew up watching the prequels. And it is amazing for it.
Luke was never the Chosen One, I think you've misinterpreted. It was Anakin who defeated the Sith. Luke just scored an assist.
Luke was possibly a second try for the Force (which assumes some type of agency, but any of these theories do). Anakin met all the Chosen One criteria, except he turned (thanks to the Jedi Council and Palpatine's manipulations of them all). Luke was both a redemption for Anakin, a removal of the breaker of the prophecy (Palpatine), and a hope for the future. A second Chosen One, one who might be as or more powerful than Anakin in his prime, since he has the blood and gift but not Anakin's personal trauma that haunts and detracts him.
I think the biggest flaw of the sequels was the vagueness of why Luke couldn't renew or reimagine the Jedi again in a better form. It's glossed over to give a minimal backstory for Kylo, Snope is even more unclear and ended up being nothing, and why it drove Luke into isolation still isn't really told.
I liked TFA. I didn't like the start of TLJ. I expected a better thing that Luke just "meh" with the saber and the apathy towards everything. I wanted something deep and dramatic, tragic even. I was okay with Rey being no one special, that actually was the best part of TLJ (the end with the kid and broom). That seemed very interesting to follow.
Then it lost me fully.
Same, I started rise of Skywalker, and only after the ridiculous opening sequence I was already done with the whole thing. And I love Star Wars.
I still can't believe some writer penned "some how, palpatine returned" into the script and didn't light the whole draft on fire right there. I guess between the hamfisted bloodline reveal and the magical sith dagger guiding the way to the star destroyer parking lot - who cares at that point. Fuck it, send it.
Oscar Isaac did an interview recently where he revealed that line was added in reshoots. So that line was written in an attempt to fix whatever catastrophic wreck the script was in before then.
I'm imagining some writer going "wait a minute, did we ever explain why Palpatine was back?" And then writing that and leaning back with a smug "whew. Nailed it."
As bad as it is, that line and “they fly now” are Lucas level shit dialogue and the only two memorable lines from the trilogy. Compare that to the atrocious dialogue of the prequels that have become such beloved memes you don’t even have to add the words.
That palps line represents so much more than the dialog quality to me though. It's all about the context, TRoS built up nothing around this and suddenly jumps sideways into a plot that neccessated invalidating a significant moment of the original trilogy. It's jarring as a viewer and there's no explaination for why it's happening. THEN the film has the audacity to imply through dialog, actually the audience should not worry about the details - this is what we're doing. Almost feels insulting in some ways.
I agree. It’s just a snippet of Lucas level dialogue in a trilogy that otherwise isn’t Lucas grade throughout. SW fans may have shat on the Prequels when they came out but have more or less forgiven and embraced them for what they were because the hardcore fans know George is a great visionary, terrible execution. The actors did the best they could and there’s a charm to what the director wanted to convey but the clunkiness of the words. The shift from Hayden and Ahmed hate to fan love shows that realization. SW now operates in two realities. The realistic grimdark of Andor, or the classic good vs evil camp of Lucas. The sequels delivered neither.