A Professional Editor Breaks Down The Rise of Skywalker

this video is sponsored by Squarespace I had a lot of with the fact that the rise of Skywalker would be bad I read the leaked plot for the movie weeks before it came out and therefore was able to laugh in November so I didn't have to cry in the theatres in December now I actually really enjoyed watching the rise of Skywalker much in the same way that I would enjoy watching a multi-colored dumpster fire but no matter how much I liked it the rise of Skywalker was plain and simple a poorly constructed movie and if you know anything about this channel I could just ramble about my opinion on the film but any monkey with the microphone could do that instead let me give a professional assessment and break down exactly what writing choices and mistakes led to the most nonsensical movie in Star Wars history okay I stand corrected anyway buckle up because this is going to be a long one [Music] [Music] thanks to second grade English we all learned that an antagonist is one of the basic fundamental components of constructing a plot antagonists either create or maintain the conflict the conflict being whatever force or circumstance is preventing the main characters from achieving their goal and Star Wars at least the core film franchise side of it has consistently handled the role of antagonists in a rather interesting way there has always been a central antagonist and a secondary or sub antagonist having characters to fill both of these roles has allowed Star Wars a fair bit of freedom in terms of plot progression the central antagonist has always served two narrative functions firstly they are meant to be recognized as objectively immoral as the evil of the dark side personified the central antagonist is not meant to be three-dimensional or sympathetic or redeemable the second narrative function of the central antagonist is to tempt others to succumb to evil now considering these sub antagonists their narrative function is to come into direct personal conflict with the main characters while the central antagonist is the source of the conflict ie the star war the sub antagonist is the tool by which that conflict is directly delivered to the main characters for an example think of how fire lord ozai was always the person at the center of the war that acted as the last airbenders conflict but Zuko Xiao and Azula were the enemies that the Avatar gang actually faced and just so you can prepare yourself I'm going to be referencing avatar a lot in this video because that show does a lot of what Star Wars attempts but just better anyway the formula for central antagonist and sub antagonist has remained true for all nine main Star Wars movies even though it probably shouldn't have but we'll get into that later in Episode one Palpatine was the central antagonist though very much in the shadows and Darth Maul was the sub antagonist in Episode two Count Dooku replaced Maul as the sub antagonist in Episode three General Grievous replaced Dooku for episodes four five and six Darth Vader was the sub antagonist Episode seven is where we get our first change to the central antagonists of Star Wars Snoke assumes that role and kylo is the solve antagonist same thing in Episode eight in Episode nine though the series brings back Palpatine as the central antagonist and for time kylo is the sub antagonist now the reason I went over all of this is because getting these roles down pat is integral in understanding why the rise of Skywalker took such a sharp left turn and why it was flawed so we all know the famous throne room scene where kylo bisects Snoke and then does the evil equivalent of proposing to Rey I want you to join me we can roll together bring a new order to the galaxy the intended focus of the scene is on what this choice means for Rey as a character the narrative tension is whether she will join kylo or stay true to her path but something I truly believe the writers did not think about until it was too late was how much important snoke's death had for kylo as a character Snoke as the central antagonist for Episode seven and eight not only existed to oppose Rey and the other characters he also acted as the hand that guided all of kylos evil actions and the source of moral temptation for kylo that has been the role of the central antagonist in every Star Wars film the sub antagonists never have much agency they simply do as the central antagonist commands but that is very significant because kylos character journey up to this point at least in relation to Snoke was him learning that he could form his own identity for himself that he could stand against manipulation and that he did not need to live his life according to how others planned or used to live their own lives hence but the pastime kill it if you have to kylos killing of Snoke was the physical embodiment of that sentence it was the action that signified his rejection of being told which paths and traditions to follow which by definition and this is the crazy part meant that upon snoke's death kylo had the freedom to choose whatever lifestyle he wanted no one was tempting him or whispering in his ear he had gained for the first time complete agency as a character and he still chose the dark side just like Darth Vader kylo was faced with the opportunity Redemption after killing his overlord but unlike Darth Vader kylo rejected that Redemption and from Disney's perspective this probably resulted in the worst case scenario by Snoke being gone the role of the central antagonist was left vacant since there was a whole other movie left in the trilogy kylos rejection of redemption and continued pursuit of wanting to rule the galaxy as supreme leader of the first order meant that he would become the central antagonist of the last remaining movie so why would this be such a bad thing from Disney's perspective and why would they want to avoid it but the Star Wars as a film franchise is fundamentally based around two things rejecting temptation and redemption from succumbing to temptation but if kylo was the central antagonist he would have to act in the role of being true in arguable evil which would not be redeemed only destroyed every trilogy is based around at least one of the main characters battling with their allegiance to either the light or the dark side of the force Luke was tempted by Vader but rejected it Anakin was tempted and seduced by Palpatine but he redeemed himself but if kylo assumed the role of central antagonist for the third movie as he was set up to do he wouldn't be doing evil things as a tool for a greater force or because of temptation or because he was being offered darkside cookies kylo would have complete agency as a character to make his own decisions meaning he would have to completely own all of his evil actions and if you're thinking well couldn't they just give kylo or redemption arc in the ninth movie well actually they kinda couldn't remember Kyllo chose his path with no ambiguity after killing Snoke if he wasn't inclined to redeem himself then there probably wouldn't be any situation where he would choose to later and don't get me wrong I'm not saying that people can't be given multiple chances to redeem themselves it is how kylos initial redemption was written that causes the issue it would be one thing to have kylo be offered redemption but then turn it down because some external force like a person or an event was influencing him negatively if that were the case Redemption could simply be represented later in the narrative when that person or event had no influence on Kyllo allowing him to make a decision most genuine to his character however that's not what happened kylos chance at redemption after killing Snoke was the moment where he was able to make his most genuine choice again he chose evil not through temptation but through ambition this is the same narrative reason why Gamora and nebula could be redeemed but not Thanos the two sisters committed their evil actions but castanos forced them Thanos committed evil actions because Donald wanted to so either because of bad writing shortsightedness or both star wars was caught between a rock and a hard place the last Jedi ended with kylo as the supreme leader and the only real villain leaving him as the sole option to be the central antagonist for the final movie but central antagonists in star wars are supposed to represent pure unmitigated evil that must be vanquished with extreme prejudice which stands in the way of Disney's desperate want to redeem kylo in order to follow along with the message at the core of Star Wars narrative and of course never mind all of us fans who found the idea of a three-dimensional grey character being confronted with redemption only to choose evil of his own accord as extremely compelling and interesting and screw all those people who are looking forward to Star Wars interacting with the idea that not every fallen hero needs to be redeemed but sometimes need to be taken out for the greater good instead of all that the grand fix was to say scratch everything we just set up here is Palpatine and hopefully I can explain why they did that as said before if Kyla was the main antagonist of the final movie there was no one above him meaning all of his evil actions are his own and become indictments upon his character but Palpatine is the get-out-of-jail-free card by throwing him in the story for no reason he can be the central antagonist of the narrative kylo can still roll with the first order in be complacent while whole planets are destroyed because Palpatine's dominance over him shields him from any moral responsibilities kylos adherence to the dark side can be viewed through the lens of Palpatine tempting manipulating and threatening him have been different voice ever heard inside and best of all in by best I mean worst Palpatine's re-introduction puts kylo right back where he started at Episode seven with an evil master calling the shots that he can rise up against for a chance at redemption as Walter White would say it's brilliant but here is why that decision is so poor it doesn't make any sense on any level in universe Palpatine was supposed to be dead he got heated down a metal chasm the movie tries to give an explanation for Palpatine's return by throwing around the terms cloning and sift powers but none of those lazy options come close to justifying bringing back a character that has been dead in universe for 30 years in dead out of universe for longer on a narrative level though it cheapens work flat-out destroys so much of what was good about the previous Star Wars movies showing the audience that villains can just be brought back into the story at any time really steals the wind from fighting those villains Luke and Anakin struggle against Palpatine means a whole lot less when you realize they didn't actually defeat him and of course revealing a previously hidden villain that has been a secret puppet master almost always falls flat a movie that readily comes to mind that tried and failed with this narrative technique is the Dark Knight Rises Bane is the villain for 90% of the film and does a heck of a good job with it until Talia al Ghul reveals herself to be the true mastermind this is the same thing that happens with Palpatine and Snoke though the whole test-tube baby thing makes it even dumber the reason why antagonistic switch reels like this don't work is because a writer cannot simply move all the terror and menace that one character embodies over to another really the opposite happens because Bane and Snoke had no real agency towards the conflict as an antagonist they lose all their power and authority because they are now seen as nothing but pawns and sure Palpatine had half a dozen other movies to build up his own terror but his secret puppeteering in the sequel trilogy makes him feel so far removed from the narrative that it is hard to give him any real credit his appearance in the rise of Skywalker simply raises more question than it answers how did Palpatine build his super fleet how did he survive climaxes are meant to be the place where questions of the narrative come to a close not the place for new questions to emerge introducing Palpatine in the third movie of this trilogy may have been the master plan all along but the current way it is presented makes it seem like a panic reaction to save kylo from villainy and protect those sweet sweet merchandising sales and speaking of merchandising sales if you happen to run a small business like I do Squarespace has got you covered when it comes to designing your website even if you just need a website for school or personal use Squarespace is there to make the whole process simple you can customize web pages to your preferences with videos photo galleries backgrounds and more I'm actually using Squarespace to make my own website for the channel and hopefully you guys can see what it looks like soon anyway check out squarespace.com and by using my personal link in the description you can get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain so back to Star Wars the most important part of a narrative is its conflict the chosen conflict stands at the center of all the major decisions and opportunities within the story characters can only change insofar as a conflict pushes them from one state of being to another antagonists are only as threatening as the conflict they present a climax can only be as powerful as the conflict that stands at its foundation no matter where your story takes place or how many characters are within or the seriousness of the circumstances the conflict of the narrative is the driving force at the center of everything and likewise presenting the conflict to the audience in a smooth digestible way is paramount you as a writer could construct the most intricate nail-biting conflict ever conceived but if the audience doesn't understand how it relates to the characters or setting it won't matter this was a problem that The Witcher series on Netflix struggled with there was a whole bunch of conflict surrounding interesting characters but the reasons why weren't as clear as they could have been conversely Avatar The Last Airbender circumvented this problem by just stating the conflict it's narrative out right in the intro similarly Star Wars does this with its opening crawl there is no ambiguity to the goal of the main characters or the struggle that they are in and that has allowed everyone from adults to children to latch on to the premises of both series but Star Wars and avatar like many adventure narratives had an overarching conflict the war and several more personal character complex in avatars case Sokka and Katara's conflicts centered around their parents a centered around his pacifism Zuko centered around his identity and so on and so forth the force awakens and the last Jedi mirrored this dual conflict structure closely the war against the first order was the primary conflict presented to the audience but the theme of identity created conflict for many of the characters on a personal level episode 7 & 8 while about a war were just as much about what people were willing to go through to discover their identity and what that identity means on a personal level ray and Kyle oh and even Finn all struggled with who they were and who they were meant to be it is this combination of the two levels of conflicts the simple easy-to-understand overarching conflict and the complex nuanced personal conflicts that allow adventure narratives to be both escapist and relatable their allure is to take us away to a different world in time while also grounding the over-the-top circumstances in characters that we care about because they struggle like us at the end of the day the best narratives are about the human heart in conflict with itself and that is why scenes like this [Music] are so much less powerful than scenes like this unfortunately the rise of Skywalker wasn't concerned with any of that it abandoned the nuanced conflicts of the characters personal struggles for Palpatine his face Satan with a Megadeth army and we need to find a way to his hel planet to stop him ray wants to kill the Emperor Paul wants to kill the Emperor Finn wants to kill the Emperor heck kylo wants to kill the Emperor after the first act and really that is about all the characters try for for the entire movie the personal conflicts of the characters were either abandoned or became synonymous with the overarching conflict destroying the big bad evil guy becomes the focus of every narrative thread and that is a shame look as the third entry in any trilogy is where the personal character journeys are supposed to come to a head a failure of the rise of Skywalker was that the story became ultra simplified in the very instance where it was meant to be the most complex the whole movie is basically one giant fetch quest for a Wayfinder than a 30-minute battle scene with an outcome so predictable that a nine-year-old could foresee it and somehow at the same time the actual conflict of the movie is so overly complicated that it's being comprehensible Palpatine's plan was to have a child and then have a grandchild and then have his child assassinated two orphan his grandchild and then have his grandchild grow up to hate him but not tell his grandchild about him so that his grandchild would try to murder him so he can move his sith essence into his grandchild and rule the galaxy through their body and as crazy as that sounds that isn't even the worst of it like I said before one of the key components of a conflict is delivering it to the audience in a simple enough way that they can understand it and just to recap the conflict of a narrative is whatever is keeping the protagonist or the main characters from achieving their goal Rey's goal was to take down Palpatine simple enough right where things start to get a bit tricky is that Palpatine as the antagonist wanted raid to kill him in simple terms the protagonist and the antagonist both had the same goal and desired the same outcome effectively putting the conflict in stasis the narrative establishes that Rey cannot kill Palpatine because that would turn her to the dark side but it also established that Palpatine must die in order to save the galaxy now believe it or not this type of narrative climax is not new typically in a situation like this where a main character cannot act to oppose the antagonist the narrative has built up another character that can stand against the antagonist we actually see this in Avatar uncle Iroh has the full capability of defeating Ozai during the climax however he states that he cannot do it because it would be perceived as nothing but a selfish conflict of brother against brother instead of a row facing Ozai the antagonist the narrative has set up another character to do it instead Aang now while I was in the middle of watching the rise of Skywalker I thought the narrative was progressing to a moment or kylo would step in and killed the emperor unlike Rey kylo has no emotional connectivity to the emperor kylo could kill Palpatine and use that moment as his ultimate act of redemption shunning the dark side in becoming a morally good character except I realized very quickly that wasn't possible either kylo had already taken down Snoke the first central antagonist to the series if kylo were to then also kill Palpatine it would completely invalidate Rey as a character she would have accomplished nothing across three movies kylo would have taken down every villain and Rey would have just been a glorified vehicle for his narrative journey so with only two characters set up to defeat the antagonist one of whom cannot kill Palpatine for moral reasons and the other who cannot kill Palpatine for narrative reasons what did the rise of Skywalker decide to do well they basically said that's right let's just have ray kill Palpatine regardless of what we just said would happen if that occurred this is where the conflict of the movie completely falls apart the entire story thus far is Rey battling with visions of her turning to the dark side and when she is confronted with the cause and effect reasons of that happening the movie just decides to ignore all that build-up for a sappy ending what was the point of having the film's entire climax focused around Rey's moral conundrum if it wish is going to be ignored anyway and I know the movie is trying to say that because Rey literally didn't strike Palpatine down she didn't give in to the dark side but that's just insulting is stabbing a man with a laser sword any less righteous than purposefully burning him out of existence the conflict for the rise of Skywalker was too simple and too convoluted at the same time which I guess is impressive in its own way a much a better alternative would have been for way to kill Snoke giving kylo the opportunity to mirror her actions and take down Palpatine when she could not that way each of them could have overcame a villain in the series and truly embodied the force dichotomy that the trilogy had been building them up to be but that would have taken years of planning and that might be too much to ask of Star Wars now Han Solo's death in the force awakens is one of my favorite scenes in Star Wars it of course was a powerful emotional moment that really played upon the relationships of the characters but when I considered it from an editing perspective I was excited for the potential that it created in the series Han Solo's death established a precedent that important characters in this film franchise could be faced with fatal consequences danger in a story is only as potent as the consequences that it brings having characters constantly escape danger teaches the audience that the danger doesn't really amount to anything this is a common problem in the horror movie genre and managing danger correctly was a strength of a show like Game of Thrones having the characters feel like they are in real danger as a result of the conflict makes their struggle seem so much more real therefore making their achievements seem greater as well Han Solo's death in the force awakens really impressed me because in a movie that fetishize fans service to pass entries in the series killing off Han Solo a fan favorite meant that going forward other characters could meet the same fate I had a similar moment of all when watching the rise of Skywalker when Rey accidentally shot force lightning and blew up the transport carrying Chewbacca I fell in love with the movie to me that was as perfect a moment as it could have been as a fan I was horrified and shocked that one of the most iconic characters in the entire series was now dead but as a person who cares deeply about narrative construction I was so excited for what it meant for the story since the conflict of the film was resting upon the idea that Rey could turn to the dark side there was no better way to show that than through her dark side powers coming out through her rage and anger followed by disastrous consequences it not only forced out on her relationship to Palpatine it gives Chewbacca a meaningful death that serves the narrative establishes true consequences for actions and shows how when Rey gives in to her emotions she starts her path to the dark side sure in a perfect world all of this stuff would have been set up much sooner but given the circumstances they did the best that they could but then 10 minutes later the movie goes completely flaccid and tells us Rey blew up an identical transport that just happened to be in the same location but just unseen by the characters all those brownie points that the movie earned by having a meaningful character death and establishing real consequences for the conflict instantly vanish all that admiration I felt for the bravery of the decision instantly turned into disappointment yet still I was a sweet summer child and did not know what was ahead just a short while later in the movie c-3po has a fake-out death as well and yes he doesn't technically die but having his entire memory erased is basically tantamount to a character death and while not as egregious we get this again with kylo when Palpatine shoves him down a conveniently-placed pit leaving ray to face Palpatine alone but then it's revealed kylo is alive when it's most convenient for the plot to do so writers listen up including fake-out character deaths is one of the worst things that you could do for the conflict of your narrative not only do deaths with no stakes destroy tension they create resentment in the audience because the narrative is playing with their emotions jus bakas death was a powerful moment c-3po s death was a powerful moment these were characters that have been around since the beginning making the audience feel sad that they were gone and then shoving them back in the audience's face like some schoolyard prank does nothing but make the viewers jaded if there was ever a time to start killing off characters it would be the ninth movie in a 42 year long series when a character no longer has a functional purpose to the plot or the narrative their death can act as a powerful close to their journey Han died meaningfully in episode 7 Luke died in episode 8 there is no reason Chewbacca and c-3po couldn't have died in episode 9 all their fake out deaths do was cheapen the stakes for the rest of the film aside from Rey and kylo and honestly maybe even rivaling them I found Finn to be the most compelling character introduced when the sequel trilogy first began never before had a main Star Wars film focused on the mental and emotional struggles of a stormtrooper Finn as a character opened up a philosophical can of worms that I thought Disney wouldn't want anything to do with Finn was the audience's way of seeing behind the mask of the famous faceless soldiers allowing us to understand that they were real people not all of whom would be on board with the violence they were perpetrating Finn was abducted turned into a child soldier forced to conform to a military regime and was expected to commit atrocities whenever asked in a film franchise about space wizards and chosen ones it was extremely alluring to see that the force awakens was giving narrative acknowledgement and attention to the intimate exploration of the human heart and the trauma that could be caused by the war at the center of Star Wars Fenn in his struggle for identity and purpose had phenomenal potential as a character in this intergalactic space opera setting but and there is always a but with Star Wars it was clear by the end of the second movie that Disney had no idea what to do with him as a character his mission with rose was hands down my least favorite hour of cinema this decade and no it's not because of Kelly Marie Tran is because the entire side quest was pointless it was blatantly obvious that the last Jedi's narrative and the conflict within were outside the scope of what Finn could contribute to as a character let me break that down on a functional writing level though as I said before Finn's character was based around his trauma as a stormtrooper and his lack of identity for all intents and purposes Finn was just a guy and that worked for the force awakens because his two companions Ray and Poe were equally as mundane ray started the trilogy as a junkyard scrapper who fought with a stick Poe while skilled and decorated was still just a resistance pilot in the face of the first quarters galactic army all three characters of the force awakens' trio Finn Poe and Ray were generally equally equipped to oppose and affect the conflict this doesn't mean they were all equally powerful because ray obviously out classes both Poe and Finn but each of them had a unique skill that played an important role during the climax that aided in overcoming the conflict Finn used the knowledge he gained as a stormtrooper to inform the resistance of Starkiller base and how to disable the shield's Poe led the resistance attack and Ray faced off against kylo the force awakens as the first movie in a trilogy was all about establishing the characters the skills they bring to stand against the conflict and their potential for growth in the upcoming the actions that the characters take during the force awakens climax exemplify the role they are best suited for going forward Rey will act as the rising Jedi warrior who will fight directly against the sith poe is the rebel leader who will carry the troops forward in battle and finn will use his former knowledge has a stormtrooper to take down the first order fast forward to the last Jedi and Finn has come down with a case of useless character syndrome what do I mean by that well basically useless character syndrome is the affliction of when a character who was once central to the narrative is no longer equipped to assist in overcoming the conflict Rey and Poe both plays significant roles within the last Jedi in facing off against the antagonist this is because their character skills that were established in the force awakens have direct value and impact on the narrative of the last Jedi Rey can still face the sit directly and Poe can still act to lead the rebels against the first order but Finn's former life as a stormtrooper doesn't really help anyone he has to be sent on a meaningless side quest to fill time and justify his inclusion in the narrative and it gets even worse in the rise of Skywalker I swear all he did for the entire movie was yelled the names of other characters and snap could be one-liners just think about it for a moment what did Finn do in the rise of Skywalker what unique skills did he bring to the table that affected the plot if you're drawing a blank it's because there aren't any good answers to that question the rise of Skywalker did the exact same thing that the last Jedi did partnered finn with a female companion and made him engage in quote-unquote action for roughly half an hour useless character syndrome is actually pretty common among character trios though Naruto Sasuke and Sakura all started out with skills that while not completely equal could affect the narrative in meaningful unique ways however by the end of Shippuden Naruto and Sasuke were demigods and Sakura had the great ninja skill of converting oxygen into carbon dioxide a trio that never experienced useless character syndrome was the original avatar gay even though Aang and Katara were vastly more powerful than Sokka the was always constructed in a way so that Sokka could use his unique intelligence to affect the conflict from beginning to end Sokka never came off as useless and he had a whole episode about feeling useless one of the saddest things to consider too is that the rise of Skywalker came this close to curing Finn of his useless character syndrome throughout the film he wants to tell ray a secret there is competing speculation about what that secret actually was but most people think that he either wanted to reveal that he was in love with Rey or that he was force sensitive and honestly either of them could have worked albeit the less interesting alternative if Finn told ray he was in love with her he could have been raised anchor to the light side during her struggle with Palpatine and the dark side within the last Jedi was the lion fighting here even what we love ray could have defeated Palpatine not because of her hatred of him but because of her wanting to protect Finn giving his inclusion a unique purpose in the narrative that affects the climax the other better option in my opinion is that Finn is force sensitive allowing him to become Ray's apprentice in the resolution this would make Finn the first step towards restoring the Jedi and provide an excellent conclusion to his journey from lowly stormtrooper but really there is a third option to make Finn not so useless instead of blowing up comm towers like a foot soldier Finn could have used those towers to transmit a message to all the stormtroopers working for the first order he could have told them his experience of gaining freedom from Imperial servitude of finding who he was and fighting for something he truly believed in Finn could have used his former life as a stormtrooper to help others within the first order rebel just like he did crystallizing his skills established in the first movie and narrative journey across the trilogy into a single moment the film already set up such defections by having Huck's and the former stormtroopers switched sides if Finn had convinced ranks within the first order to mutiny they could have been a much more believable replacement to the giant random space fleet that appears with Lando out of nowhere which leads us to the narrative function of peril and danger is to build interest around how the characters will find their way out of it the greater the peril the characters face the more interesting their journey to surmount that peril will be at the beginning of the film Palpatine is shown to have his massive army like bigger than anything the galaxy has ever seen this of course is to raise the stakes of what the main characters are facing going into the third movie the first order had been fundamentally weakened Snoke was dead the upper command was dead and the flagship had been destroyed conversely Rey discovered her force powers giving the resistance its greatest warrior yet the climax of a narrative is intended to present the main characters with their greatest struggle so seeing as how that would be difficult - given the circumstances that closed the last the writers pulled this huge fleet of Planet Busters out of nowhere this is why the tension of the film might have felt manufactured to you because it was instead of building up step-by-step to a climax the rise of Skywalker just drops one from the sky and in traditional narratives while the threat associated with the conflict usually does increase in act 2 act or from movie to movie so too does the capabilities of the main characters this is the whole point of characters growing and developing on their journeys by the end of the narrative they should be equipped to overcome the antagonist because of the changes and experiences they have cultivated over their narrative journey but what is a writer ever to do if they do not construct a narrative that properly equips the characters to deal with the challenges of the climax go back to storyboarding rewrite some plot lines hire an editor golley tell all those options sound tiring and smart the cheap easy route is to fall upon the old deus ex machina I haven't talked about deus ex machina as much on this channel so let me do that for a bit now the term literally means a god from a machine and refers to the crane that held the god over the stage during ancient Greek plays a god which would come in during the last moments of the play to solve the problems of the puny humans the term gets thrown around a lot nowadays and refers to a previously unfortunate event or circumstance that comes in to save a seemingly hopeless situation in simple terms a deus ex machina is a narrative tool that allows you to introduce something in the climax that allows a character to prevail over conflict the reason why day of sex máquinas are frowned upon is because they nullify all the build up of the narrative they rob the characters of using their experiences they cultivated over the course of a narrative to overcome the conflict sure ray killed Palpatine but neither she nor kylo or any of the other main characters had any actual hand in defeating Palpatine's fleet which was the real main threat to the galaxy big bad evil guy accompanied by giant insurmountable army is not new in fiction Game of Thrones wrote seven seasons on that premise however what many stories do to circumvent the inherent flaws of that narrative setup is to tie the armies fate directly to the antagonists fate if the main characters defeat the big bad the army will be destroyed as well van Helsing did this with the vampire babies Independence Day did this with the aliens and The Mummy Returns did this with the army of Anubis the rise of Skywalker decidedly did not do this Palpatine and the final order were two separate antagonistic forces the movie dealt with Palpatine's threat through rey and kylo which was the best option considering the circumstances but the huge army that posed the threat of galactic colonization doesn't have a character equivalent to counter it there was no hero that could possibly equal the might of the final order and because there was no narrative setup to deal with the fleet if the first offensive against it failed a deus ex machina with Lando was all that was left to save the story and to be clear my issue isn't with a huge fleet coming to fight with the resistance it's not perfect but it's not completely egregious either the main fault of it all is that none of our main characters directly contributed to bringing the galaxy together against the final order nor was this type of manpower previously foreshadowed the closest thing we get is an offhand remark about people maybe being inspired to fight against Palpatine it is a cool scene no doubt but it feels cheap because ultimately that's what it is [Music] [Music] all of these criticisms with the rise of Skywalker can really be summed up by saying that the sequel trilogy seems extremely fractured the force awakens is an homage that is nearly faithful to a fault towards Episode four we had our chosen warrior a death-dealing mega weapon and a masked villain lord it over by an evil leader the force awakens was a familiar movie that while establishing foreshadowing and setting up questions that the rest of the trilogy would ride on definitely still felt like a film that held on to the traditions of Star Wars very closely the last Jedi though took a very different route a focus of the second movie was to make a purposeful effort to separate from Star Wars films of the past tradition and precedent were rejected long-established foreshadowing was subverted to move the narrative into never-before-seen territory the last Jedi set the stage for a completely new look at what a big-budget Star Wars film could offer and how the characters within could evolve however the rise of Skywalker yet again took the series in another direction instead of turning away from the past and engaging with the new narrative and plot lines like the last Jedi set up the final movie in the trilogy goes literally as far back into the past as possible Palpatine is pulled out of nowhere after not being foreshadowed at all to become the centerpiece of the entire film it is these differing themes and narrative messages that cause the trilogy to feel so disjointed a trilogy at its core is nothing but a narrative three-act structure except each act is a movie each movie is supposed to provide details and context that give power to the next movie but these three sequel trilogy movies all really have themes and narratives that are all independent of each other the only thing that is consistent across the movies are the characters I would wager that someone could see the rise of Skywalker without having seen the previous two films and come away no worse off than I did one movie embraces the past one movie shuns the past and the last movie becomes the past I guess the best way to close this video is to say that if Star Wars ever decides to come back with an ova trilogy episode 7 8 & 9 should serve as signs of the dangers of having such a disjointed fractured creative process episodes 10 11 and 12 whatever they might be and whenever they might come out should maybe just maybe experiment with having a plot and a message that is built up and stays consistent but then again look on the bright side at least we won't have to see what a trilogy made by these guys look like anyway thank you all so much for wasting an hour of your precious day on me if you liked what you heard you could be a total homie and support the channel on patreon and also give some love to our sponsor Squarespace as always it was a pleasure and I will talk to you all again soon

Channel: Savage Books

Views: 573,027

Rating: 4.8002105 out of 5

Keywords: star wars, the last jedi, jj abrams, rise of skywalker, kylo ren, the force awakens, luke skywalker, star wars editing, star wars episode 9, the force, star wars 9, bojack horseman, video essay, kylo ren vs rey, star wars episode 9 review

Id: Uzujpplt-0M

Length: 41min 2sec (2462 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 17 2020

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[u/Massive-Gas]

This is how would i've made it: First i wouldn't bring back palpatine as the central antagonist i would make a smart and strong general that hates kylo because his failure to kill rebels in the last jedi. That general would organize an atack against kylo that wouldn't kill him but wounded him and kylo injured would see a vision of darth vader that tells him he regrets turing to dark and that it is not to late for kylo. Than kylo is found by ray and the others and took prisoner but he asks ray for a chance to redeem himself so ray accepts and they would defeat the general together but after ray would try to kill him and kylo stops her showing he is trying to be better in this way characters are still gray but they could still do a good thing for the others.

[u/Tiny_Pay]

Great video, and u snuck that ad in so well I didn't even look for the skip button.