Official TROS Spoilers discussion

Problem is he carried on after NYE was history.
I'm genuinely baffled at how JJ indulged his friends. Finn wants to be FS, Oscar wants Poe to survive, Daisy wants single Rey. They get their wishes.

And people all Kylo overprivileged!

Yeah, @vaderito hit the nail on the head. JB got upset because the movie was so badly cut and so many things were added last minute, that what he wanted (Heroic Force Sensitive Finn) didn't make it.

It's not so much as JJ indulging his friends either. Those people are not friends. Don't believe the cookie cutter narrative that actors loved to hang out on set when in reality they barely even talk. It's just JJ being spineless and bending down to corporate interests. Those actors had no institutional power to do anything that truly mattered.

Reylos are an easy target since 2016 not only because of the demographic (majority of women) but also because "romance" is taboo not just in SW fandom but in contemporary media ("ughh romancee" or "strong women need no men" discourse). After TROS, Reylos are the most vocal group pointing out the inconsistencies in the trilogy and how hard they dropped the ball. So the easiest way to shut down the group that's making the brand look bad is to trash them or paint them as villains.

Yep. As for cookie cutter narrative, all franchises have them and some even go into showmance extreme in order to create more appeal to its fans. Robsten and Emma/Andrew were notorious showmances that everyone knew would end with the last movie in the franchise. They tried that with Zendaya and Holland but she got an actual boyfriend on the set of Euphoria.

One of the most staged friendships was LOTR cast. They even got identical tats and then Sean Astin wrote a scathing tell-all. Friendship found dead in the ditch. And then cast started to reveal that their lord and savior PJ paid them only for food and lodgings and that conditions on the set were as unsafe as it gets.

So ST friendship is a laugh.

What suggested Daisy wanted single Rey? I honestly don't think she cared either way. It's like the Rey's parents thing, she was nowhere near as attached to the concept as others were. Yet those were the two questions she was asked the most about, to the exclusion of almost anything else. I kind of feel bad for her, I get why she seemed so done and frustrated with press questions.

Exactly. Daisy never once said anything about single, married, engaged or widowed Rey. She actually didn't care about any of it.

I know a lot of people wanted the actors to validate their headcanons and opinions (from all sides of the fan spectrum), but actors have a different relationship with the product because they're in it. That also goes for Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, even John Boyega.

I do think JJ wanted Rey to be the most popular character though, and wasn't pleased that it turned out to be Kylo.
Watching TROS it practically screams at the audience that they're meant to be with Rey all the way, as every character is sidelined next to her. Poe and Finn spend most of the film following her around. Kylo is relegated back to Masked Baddie for much of the first part of the film, then his character is truly shafted in the last half hour.
It's actually almost comical!

I get why they wanted Rey to be the most popular character, she's the protagonist after all, we're supposed to be very invested in her. But I do think they were surprised at Kylo's popularity.

They put all their eggs in the "Found family / girl power" basket but didn't bother to execute any of it properly. And by the way, while I'm sure there was a lot drama behind the scenes and a lot of personal agendas, the sad truth is that Rey Skywalker was just a sad attempt at rebranding that backfired because no one cares about the Skywalkers now that all of them are dead. They thought they could turn the Skywalker name into a concept/"you can be a Skywalker too" for their theme park and their merch, but underestimated how attached people were to the story and its themes.

@Piper Maru wrote:They put all their eggs in the "Found family / girl power" basket but didn't bother to execute any of it properly. And by the way, while I'm sure there was a lot drama behind the scenes and a lot of personal agendas, the sad truth is that Rey Skywalker was just a sad attempt at rebranding that backfired because no one cares about the Skywalkers now that all of them are dead. They thought they could turn the Skywalker name into a concept/"you can be a Skywalker too" for their theme park and their merch, but underestimated how attached people were to the story and its themes.

@Piper Maru

All of this. And attached to the family as in blood Skywalkers. If they thought that making the name available for grabs was going to suffice, boy were they wrong.

@californiagirl wrote:I get why they wanted Rey to be the most popular character, she's the protagonist after all, we're supposed to be very invested in her. But I do think they were surprised at Kylo's popularity.

The problem is, she wasn't very interesting. I'm not blaming Daisy at all, but the character alone just couldn't hold the films. In TFA, she had Finn and Han along for the ride, in TLJ Luke and Kylo. But by the time we got to the end of TROS, I found her irritating beyond belief.

They just didn't seem to know how to write a strong compelling female protagonist. I know I keep harping on about Witcher's Yennefer, but that character was fascinating and utterly watchable from the start. Rey was shoved into the action and we were told 'this is our heroine and YOU WILL LOVE HER.
And that was it. Making her a tiresome, judgemental Mary Sue was the last straw. Rian managed Rey the best, letting us see her impulsiveness and tendency to 'shoot first, think later' but also her vulnerability and need for her parents.
If they wanted us to embrace Rey, they should have written her better. Instead, they chose to deliberately shunt aside Kylo thinking that by giving Rey all the glory, it would endear her to the audience more. Unfortunately for this audience member.....it had exactly the opposite effect.

I remembered this quote getting passed around on Twitter from a woman who attended a virtual screenwriting masterclass where JJ was one of the subject matter experts interviewed. The entire concept of Rey as a protagonist for him was serving as an avatar for nostalgia. E.g. "Anybody can be a Skywalker":



Which as others also said when this quote surfaced, calling her a conduit between Luke and Leia is pretty gross. But it's also not surprising, unfortunately. As I said, LFL never bothered during any of the press roll out for the movies to ensure that the big cover stories for major media (Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, New York Times...) were written by female journalists or for all the talk of a female protagonist, made sure that the coverage discussed anything beyond "A girl can do Luke Skywalker stuff!" At some points in the ST, thanks to other writers who weren't JJ, the line the story tread was about the power of myth and storytelling, including in our own lives and how we lie/confront the truth as part of growing. It's in LST's opening line, Yoda's chastisement to Luke, and what the older characters face in taking stock of who they were b/c the myth making adventures of their youth versus who they've become later in life, Rey living in denial about what happened to her parents (and the story jerking that around either for pathos or Mystery Box), and whatever conflict Ben had with the myth around his family and where he fit into it. At its best moments, it got deep into that idea for the characters and that's where it worked. But the final execution being in line with a theme park roll out and potential customers up in arms about having their nostalgia tarnished, it got rolled back to simple "anybody can pretend to be one of these heroes for the price of a ticket."

I had to steal this from another forum because it sums up perfectly what went wrong with ST and especially TROS:

[edit]

I especially commend comments about what criticism DFL decided to listen to. Not the constructive, sane one.

Every critic I read described the Kylo/Rey interaction as the best part of TLJ. JJ and Terrio ignored them.

I honestly wonder what they thought when those poll results came in and people wanted to see Kylo most of all.....a whopping 85%!

I guess the fact that they kept re settings the poll results showed what kind of people they are.

@Saracene wrote:@Sacrebleu Rey taking on Organa name would have been just as unearned IMO, since Rey’s relationship with Leia is hands-down the weakest and most forced one of the OT trio. We’re just *told* that Rey spent a year training with Leia, but we don’t get to see their bond develop, and because of the severe limitations of Carrie’s older footage there’s no real depth to their interactions in TRoS. We’re just meant to buy their relationship because look, they hug, they must be close! Leia’s mentor/protege dynamic with Poe in TLJ was IMO about 1000 times more authentic and genuine.

@Saracene

I wouldn't have liked her taking the Organa name either but I thought that would have made slightly more sense than Skywalker given the information we had.  My preference would have been for Rey to finally be at peace with being "just Rey".

I actually thought before the ending leaked that Ben would have a scene where someone asked him his name and he said:'Ben Solo'.
But no. They gave that to Rey as well.

Leia taking the name of what turned out to be her adoptive parents is one of the reasons given for why Reywalker "is powerful" because "she rejected her dark origins." Which uh, at least LFL gave something for Jimmy Smits to do other than maybe pop up in 1-2 scenes and deliver exposition so you could be like "she lucked out getting raised by that guy instead of her biological parents." Reywalker OTOH is 100% the "anybody can be this hero for the price of a ticket" fantasy football camp wish fulfillment for people who make fandom the central characteristic of their identity and social life.

Also it didn't really stick the landing when the best LFL has to offer going forward in terms of concrete offerings are: 1) Project Luminous AKA "Mormons in Space" and 2) Yet another spin off from Clone Wars content that safely mines the dregs of the PT/OT era content because they're too conservative. Otherwise it's all of these announced but nothing concrete projects from makers like Taika and having JJ's former PA now as an executive there, nothing is going to happen to counter whatever position they were trying to protect with TRoS.

@motherofpearl1 wrote:I actually thought before the ending leaked that Ben would have a scene where someone asked him his name and he said:'Ben Solo'.
But no. They gave that to Rey as well.

@motherofpearl1

Oh I would have loved that.

@Piper Maru wrote:They put all their eggs in the "Found family / girl power" basket but didn't bother to execute any of it properly. And by the way, while I'm sure there was a lot drama behind the scenes and a lot of personal agendas, the sad truth is that Rey Skywalker was just a sad attempt at rebranding that backfired because no one cares about the Skywalkers now that all of them are dead. They thought they could turn the Skywalker name into a concept/"you can be a Skywalker too" for their theme park and their merch, but underestimated how attached people were to the story and its themes.

@Piper Maru

Well, who would be attached to a dead family anyway? They made them feel like losers. LOL

@motherofpearl1 wrote:I actually thought before the ending leaked that Ben would have a scene where someone asked him his name and he said:'Ben Solo'.
But no. They gave that to Rey as well.

@motherofpearl1

They didn't even give him any line as Ben Solo. You were wishing too much. XD

@snufkin wrote:(...) But the final execution being in line with a theme park roll out and potential customers up in arms about having their nostalgia tarnished, it got rolled back to simple "anybody can pretend to be one of these heroes for the price of a ticket."

@snufkin

Uh, that's depressing!

Especially after Han told him "Kylo Ren is dead. My son is alive."

I've seen that they are now saying one of the ST's most popular characters is returning.....
How many bets it ISN'T Ben.
It's just like them to build everyone's hopes up then suddenly announce its someone we saw for about five minutes!

Perhaps the biggest mistake TROS made was not following the character arcs from TLJ. Instead we got NuHan Poe, the insta-trio, and suddenly Jedi master Leia. I would have been okay with Jedi Leia, as tacked on at the last minute as it was with an actor who wasn't available to portray it, if there had been a payoff to the storyline. Leia gives up her Jedi training to save her child.....who dies anyway. Gee, thanks. So uplifting!

Sorry, I'm in a sarcastic mood tonight.

Re: Rey not being interesting, I didn’t think that Luke was all that interesting in the OT either. A protagonist is quite often the least interesting character in the story and it’s instead the supporting characters who are way more colourful, complex etc. That’s fine. But in hindsight I do appreciate the clarity of Luke’s character arc in the OT, as opposed to Rey’s vague muddled writing.

To have the protagonist have an epiphany about her parents in the 2nd film, only to go "Psych! Nuh-uh!" in the 3rd film is extremely difficult to pull off, and begs the question of why even go there?  Whoever decided her parentage, and whatever they decided, back tracking from it was a decision that backfired IMO.

Imagine if in ROTJ we found out Vader had lied to Luke about being his father.  

Or imagine if in ESB when Vader told Luke he's his father and Luke yelled no, Vader then said:  "Your mother was Padme Amidala, queen of Naboo.  She followed me to Mustafar and learned I had joined the Emperor.  She lost the will to live and died in childbirth.  Then Obi-Wan and Yoda took you and hid you from me.  And oh yeah, we're a Dyad in the Force."  That kind of exposition dump is what we got in TROS when Kylo tells Rey about Grandpa Palps, and is part of why the TROS parent reveal scene is so much less effective than the one in ESB.

@snufkin wrote:Leia taking the name of what turned out to be her adoptive parents is one of the reasons given for why Reywalker "is powerful" because "she rejected her dark origins." Which uh, at least LFL gave something for Jimmy Smits to do other than maybe pop up in 1-2 scenes and deliver exposition so you could be like "she lucked out getting raised by that guy instead of her biological parents." Reywalker OTOH is 100% the "anybody can be this hero for the price of a ticket" fantasy football camp wish fulfillment for people who make fandom the central characteristic of their identity and social life.

Also it didn't really stick the landing when the best LFL has to offer going forward in terms of concrete offerings are: 1) Project Luminous AKA "Mormons in Space" and 2) Yet another spin off from Clone Wars content that safely mines the dregs of the PT/OT era content because they're too conservative. Otherwise it's all of these announced but nothing concrete projects from makers like Taika and having JJ's former PA now as an executive there, nothing is going to happen to counter whatever position they were trying to protect with TRoS.

@snufkin

Laughed out loud at “Mormons in Space.”

But yeah.  Lucas had read alllllll about myth and storytelling.  For all his flaws, he at least had that, which is how he started all this.  JJ just seems like such a hack by comparison.  And as someone mentioned, you should publish your criticism online.

@motherofpearl1 wrote:Especially after Han told him "Kylo Ren is dead. My son is alive."

I've seen that they are now saying one of the ST's most popular characters is returning.....
How many bets it ISN'T Ben.
It's just like them to build everyone's hopes up then suddenly announce its someone we saw for about five minutes!

@motherofpearl1

I’d put my money on Finn— Oscar Isaac is clearly out. He’s done. But watch it will be someone random like Captain Phasma (“And you thought she was dead! Again!”) Or that Dominic Monahan exposition guy. Or Zorri, Poe’s love interest.

@motherofpearl1 wrote:Every critic I read described the Kylo/Rey interaction as the best part of TLJ. JJ and Terrio ignored them.

I honestly wonder what they thought when those poll results came in and people wanted to see Kylo most of all.....a whopping 85%!

I guess the fact that they kept re settings the poll results showed what kind of people they are.

@motherofpearl1
My guess:
- Reylos were rigging the polling
Or.. - they loved Vader that much and we killed him, so it’s all good.

@Piper Maru wrote:They put all their eggs in the "Found family / girl power" basket but didn't bother to execute any of it properly. And by the way, while I'm sure there was a lot drama behind the scenes and a lot of personal agendas, the sad truth is that Rey Skywalker was just a sad attempt at rebranding that backfired because no one cares about the Skywalkers now that all of them are dead. They thought they could turn the Skywalker name into a concept/"you can be a Skywalker too" for their theme park and their merch, but underestimated how attached people were to the story and its themes.

@Piper Maru

Why would I want to be a skywalker when they don’t get a happy ending?!
When they led miserable, tortured lives.. and were treated by the force like disposable tools for cosmic good?
So depressing!

@Lily Snape wrote:

@motherofpearl1 wrote:Especially after Han told him "Kylo Ren is dead. My son is alive."

I've seen that they are now saying one of the ST's most popular characters is returning.....
How many bets it ISN'T Ben.
It's just like them to build everyone's hopes up then suddenly announce its  someone we saw for about five minutes!

@motherofpearl1

I’d put my money on Finn— Oscar Isaac is clearly out.  He’s done.  But watch it will be someone random like Captain Phasma (“And you thought she was dead!  Again!”) Or that Dominic Monahan exposition guy.  Or Zorri, Poe’s love interest.  

@Lily Snape
Could be Jannah finding out she’s a Skywalker?!

@DeeBee wrote:(...) Could be Jannah finding out she’s a Skywalker?!

@DeeBee

Sounds legit.