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.
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.
Sorry, who is the reluctant hero and who is the scoundrel? I think the latter is Kylo, but who wants to bang Leia in TLJ??
Your... mom?
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.
Technically Anakin brought balance to the force. There used to be a bunch of Jedi and a few Sith. Because of Anakin, now there are a few Jedi and a few Sith.
Shoot, what was that comic where Yoda demonstrated his concerns about Anakin using salt and pepper? He dumped them both out, stuck his finger in the middle, and blew all the rest off the table. He lifted his finger, showing only a few grains of each left, and said "balanced, it is"
I hadn't heard that China might have pressured Disney about the democratization of heroism, but... I could see it. I agree TLJ felt like a bit of a downer -- especially coming from the abandoned Expanded Universe novels where Luke hadn't done the best job but at least had set a direction for Jedi to come back into the galaxy. I still don't love Rey's encounter with the dark side.
But the disruption of every story beat, the possibility of being a hero because YOU choose to step forward, that was a great twist. The broom scene should have set the direction of the terribly named Episode 9...
Maybe I'll slip Rogue One in and drop Episode 9. Still 9 movies, and only really regret the first one.
I loved young Jedi knights!
Luke was the son of the evil warlord who single handedly changed the fate of not just The Rebellion but also The Galaxy (and yes, I know the EU expanded on that to make it less the case). Was he the one in the prophecy? No. But from a narrative/trope perspective, he was 100% The Chosen One.
Rogue one and Amdor are indeed stories for people who grew up
This comment really perfectly sums up how I feel ... TLJ ends with SO MUCH POTENTIAL in my eyes.
Harumph.
Potential for a completely unrelated future story, not the end of the one they were trying to tell. TLJ is why RoS is as bad as it is. It sacrificed the future for a subversion level high score.
I think a third part could have been really well done from where TLJ ended ... you have a goodie who has literally come from nothing and maybe doubts herself as a result, and a baddie who got that way because he came from a dynasty of important people and believes his own press.
From there a story could be woven on the themes of them both changing who they are, how they see their respective worlds ... to achieve success, or forgiveness, or love.
I'm not sure pivoting to a romance movie for the finale would have been any better received.
Love doesn't necessarily mean romance - it was mentioned that Ren had been sent away too early, so his weakness for the dark side may have been there because of a lack of parental love, for example
TLJ wasn't really a middle story, though. It was a downer ending. After that there was nowhere to go without a generational time skip and a completely new story that would be inappropriate for a trilogy. There was no big antagonist anymore, there was barely any protagonist left, and every dangling plot thread was ruthlessly cut short.
Contrast it with ESB and you see with that you while have a bittersweet end to the movie, you do not have an ending of the story. Lucas even left room to bring back Han who he just sort of killed.
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.
Rogue One was legitimately great. Probably because it broke the Star Wars mould.
Something that I think helps it stand out is that it doesn't rely nearly as much on "marvel style" humor. There are some funny moments but they're more character driven you know? Like when K-2 slaps Cassian to sell the idea to the Imperials that K-2 is in charge.
And I think Transformers 2 is one of the greatest films of all time, up there with The Godfather and Citizen Kane.
Not every movie needs to be Citizen Kane and the Godfather
You can just say you didn't like Rogue One you don't need to be sarcastic about it.
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."
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.
I still can’t make it through rewatching the prequels, which premiered my first year of college.
I think nostalgia will probably polish the sequel turds just like it has done with the prequels.
I just want the in fucked with OG prints in 4K, and I’ll rewatch Andor and Rogue One, and even fucking Skeleton Crew one more time.
Sure hut fans where demanding it. I thought they where going anyone can have the force. They shown it with little kid and broom. But all fans where like she has to be somebody there is no way she can't be a nobody. Has to be blah blah blah. And the SIMPs Disney are now they are like let's give it to them.
The best part about the whole modern star wars franchise is the endless parodies mocking them.
Jedi Party, by Auralnauts, is my preferred way of watching the Prequels.
Auralnauts is canon as far as I'm concerned.
BEHOLD! THE SINGULARITY ENGINNNNNNNE! CAN YOU SEE ME NOW, FATHERRRRR?!?
Auralnauts are geniuses of satire and of god damned audio mixing, it's genuinely sublime what they made of it all. I really love their Larry! series.
Creepio, have you seen... anybody?
It's the strangest thing, they're all dead. You killed them!
Master sir, what are Midichlorians?
It's Heroin.
I will give Rise of Skywalker one thing and one thing only: Babu Frik. I know he was probably designed by committee to be cute and endearing, but man I love that little dude.
As a fan of the Dark Empire comics, I had already accepted that Palpatine returning was a possibility. The lack of any real storyline hinting at that in the two movies leading up- I expected disappointment. And I got what I expected, though visually Exegol/life support Sheev was cool. The idea that he had an entire fleet of Death Star Destroyers fully staffed and just chilling was implausible. That they were dependent on one transmitter was ludicrous. That the attack run on them was a cavalry charge of space horses was one of the stupidest fucking thing I’ve seen on film.
What pisses me off about that movie is that they spend a fair bit of time building out that Rey has super powerful force healing. So, like, what if she healed Palpatine? What if the ending to this saga of endless galactic war was not more death, but an act of healing? Maybe Palpatine still dies, but he's at least made aware of what he's done or something.
Nope. Rey use two lightsaber. Rey block real good. Palpatine go dust dust.
HEY-HEY!