[DX intro] [DX] When I'm asked what my favorite movie is, my immediate response is always... my immediate response is always... [Star Wars theme plays] I can't come up with a work that greater embodies
what I love about fiction more than A New Hope. To me, Star Wars is the best of storytelling: a tale of oppression, rebellion, friendship
and finding one's place in the world. It's a generational story, which is why it could be told through
Anakin as it was first told through Luke - its latest iteration, of course,
told through a woman named Rey. I'm here today to talk about the Star Wars
sequels and what I believe was a great failure to competently retell this story and tell one of its own, how a foolish approach to creating
a trilogy hurt every film in it, and how this approach robbed Star Wars of its space fantasy and turned it into just another science fiction franchise. This is... Star Wars: Star Wars: A Critique of the Sequels. The first step to understanding
the problems with the sequel trilogy is breaking down their lack of planning. Unlike the original trilogy, where George Lucas took the first act
from a nearly 200-page script he had written and used that as the basis for A
New Hope and then subsequent films, the sequels had practically no direction movie to movie. [Mark Hamill] I think he has great reservations.
He’s really conflicted. Who knows? We’ll have to wait and see. [Rian Johnson] Snoke is the leader of the First Order. He’s like the Emperor in the original trilogy. [Daisy Ridley] There’s something about
this girl that people around her can feel. There’s something about her
that’s going to broaden the story. [DX] What's more, they also seem
to have had very little coordination between the two filmmakers who worked
on the trilogy, J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson. It was this absence of direction
and collaboration that forced Johnson to flesh out the disappearance of Luke Skywalker, something we'll talk about in great detail later. For now, listen to how clear it is
that Johnson was left on his own to figure out something as crucial as Luke's backstory. [Johnson] The first thing I had to do
when I was writing the script was figure out, why is Luke on this island? I knew, because it’s Luke Skywalker,
who I grew up with as a hero - I knew the answer couldn’t be cowardice. I knew the answer had to be something
active - he couldn’t just be hiding - and I knew it had to be something
positive - he thinks he’s doing the right thing. [DX] The importance of this is simple: if you don't know where you're going,
you don't know how to get there. The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker are both
films that spend time rewriting the ones that preceded them, meaning that every problem
originates from The Force Awakens. Before we get to talking about specifics however,
there's one more thing that needs to be mentioned. The people who worked on these films
clearly believed that there were concepts that were just a given in the Star Wars universe. Their part in telling the story was
never analyzed, much less questioned because they were considered intrinsic to its identity. [J.J. Abrams] And so, we went backwards to go forwards. We, um, embraced everything that we
could that felt, to us, distinctly Star Wars. This whole location of Maz’s, of course,
mirrors the cantina from A New Hope, as this, Starkiller Base, mirrors the Death Star. These were the kind of locations
that felt like a given in Star Wars. We looked at it like a western, or a fairy tale. What are the elements that you’re going to
see that makes it this genre, this specific genre? We wanted to give it these sort of fundamental,
not cosmetic, but sort of prerequisite elements, these locations in which we can set
our new story and our new characters. [DX] This is the root of the sequel trilogy's problems. Because it doesn't exist in a vacuum, its attempts
to fit its characters into the roles of old characters to mirror the themes of the original
trilogy result in several plot inconsistencies. These inconsistencies then splinter off and lead to
countless other issues that sabotage all three films. With this in mind, we're going
to start with The Force Awakens and the first example of this, The First Order. The First Order, which is apparently only a part
of this story because an establishment oppressor is a box necessary to tick in
order for Star Wars to be Star Wars, makes no sense at all. With the Emperor dead and the Empire in ruins, one would think that another dark side force user taking
command of the galaxy would be uniquely far-fetched, but The Force Awakens doesn't care. The First Order just exists, and some would say that's fine because the
Empire just existed at the start of Star Wars, but the two aren't really comparable. The premise of the first work of any franchise
is distinctively invulnerable to certain criticisms. It cannot contradict anything previously established because
it's the very foundation for future plot points that could. The Empire ruled in A New Hope because
it was an essential part of its premise, and as importantly, its existence as the ruling
entity didn't contradict anything that came before it or even anything established in the rest of the film. George Lucas himself understood that when
you want to tell new stories in an old universe, things can't just exist because you want them to; they revolve around the original
work and everything established in it. Here's Lucas talking about the creation of the prequels. [George Lucas] When I wrote the original screenplay,
I had written a backstory for all the characters, so I knew where they came from. And since I was starting this whole thing in Episode IV, I had to know kinda where all these characters came
from and how they fit together and what the story was. I had the outline, so I kinda knew how the dots connected, but then there’s a whole story that has to fit around that. You have to turn that into, you
know, another six hours of film. [DX] The Force Awakens is not the first Star Wars film; therefore, its premise is beholden to the narrative
and logic of both the original trilogy and the prequels. So when you see that the First Order is
magnitudes bigger and stronger than the Empire, the question that arises is... the question that arises is... how? The prequels showed us the time before the Empire
that Obi-Wan referred to when he first met Luke. They proved that Darth Sidious did not
appear one day and become the Emperor; he had a very well thought out plan that culminated with
the destruction of his last meaningful opposition, the Jedi. The First Order is so nonsensical, however, that even if the prequels hadn't created
the Rule of Two and demonstrated how much time and effort it
took Palpatine to execute his plan, it still runs into the problem of the Empire
falling at the end of Return of the Jedi. Granted, The Force Awakens
takes place thirty years after that, but that's one of the reasons
the First Order is so illogical. Supreme Leader Snoke looks old enough to
have been around during the original trilogy, and given his strength with the Force, the idea
that he's not seen or mentioned during any of it is convenient at best. Beyond that, like I said, the First Order is
demonstrably stronger than The Empire. Where did they find all these resources? How did they build anything under the New Republic? How did they get bigger than the
Empire, yet they aren't the status quo? In a deleted scene from this film, Leia has to send
an envoy to convince the Senate of the New Republic to take action on the First Order. [Leia] I need you to go see the Senate right away. Tell them I insist the Republic
take action on the First Order. [DX] The First Order that builds a
weapon capable of killing billions of people is not the unquestionable power in the galaxy? Forget how they built this, forget how insane
it is that they have this level of manpower, the New Republic has to be convinced
to take action against a group that clearly kills anyone they want, whenever they want? The implausibility of the First Order kneecaps
the movie and the trilogy from the start. When your antagonists are cartoon levels of powerful
with zero explanation as to how they came to be, it completely trivializes the struggles of your heroes - all because there isn't a more creative way to
oppress its characters than just redoing the Empire. The First Order is only one of many instances
where The Force Awakens fails to integrate a concept from the original trilogy because it
would rather copy it than figure out how to properly reinvent it for a fresh take. It should come as no shock that The Force
Awakens gleefully created Kylo Ren (Ben Solo) from the same place of creative bankruptcy. [Abrams] The character of Kylo Ren
was one of the most challenging characters because he sort of embodied what this movie was. It was a new story, a new personality,
created from the DNA of what had come before. But because he was the villain, it meant
he was in the shadow of Darth Vader. So we embraced Vader, we made our bad guy aware of
Vader, as he would be living in a post-Vader time, and... made him the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo. [DX] Kylo Ren is deceptively problematic. He's the only character who benefits
from being created as a narrative clone, though the story of The Force Awakens
and later films suffer massively because of it. There's nothing wrong with Ben Solo being a troubled
young man torn between the two sides of the Force given the history of his family. His emulation of Vader can even be considered natural; we all resemble our influences
when we're first starting out. What The Force Awakens didn't
understand is that these traits made him a fundamentally different character than
Vader when we were introduced to him, yet Kylo still occupies the same role. Kylo's repeated failures in this movie do
plant the seeds for an interesting character, but his incompetence as a villain open the door
for a hero whose strength is difficult to explain. The opposite end on the spectrum of
competence in The Force Awakens brings us to Rey. Rey is fine until the film gets overly gratuitous. The idea of a lifelong scavenger not
only fits the Star Wars hero archetype, but it also gives Rey autonomy. Her resourcefulness, ability to
defend herself and even being bilingual are not outside of the realm of believability. I think these traits alone would have given
us a unique protagonist, but this isn't enough. Rey is also a full blown linguist,
a great pilot, a skilled mechanic, and she's not only strong with
the Force, she is proficient with it. This is the problem with Rey and what creates
the disconnect between Rey and Luke Skywalker. Rey can't faithfully represent the themes that
Luke could because of the differences in her character. Any similarities between them end at the
conceptual level since Rey becomes so overloaded that her triumph becomes an expectation. Rey accomplishes more in one film than Luke did in two, with no feasible explanation besides her
parents passing off their abilities with the Force. There's nothing explaining how she's able to
resist Kylo Ren's interrogation and flip it on him, how she knows of mind tricks and how to execute them, and the biggest one of all...
why Anakin's lightsaber calls to her. This is why The Force Awakens making its villain still
in training but so close to Vader was a huge mistake. Rey's strength is enabled by the movie allowing
her to repeatedly beat Kylo Ren at his own game. If your hero is constantly besting your villain,
what goal is there for them to overcome? By not making its main villain a seasoned veteran
that a novice like Rey couldn't possibly beat given her lack of training, The Force Awakens gets away with having an
overpowered lead who can only get stronger from here. On a side note, Anakin's lightsaber is
arguably the greatest question mark of this trilogy, as they never, through the course of three films,
try to explain how it ends up in Maz Kanata's palace. This is especially egregious,
because they wrote how it did... ...and then cut it from the film. [Abrams] In fact, in the original script,
you saw the lightsaber falling through space and landing in the ground, and a hand taking it – and you used to have this entire backstory where we
learned what happened with Luke’s lightsaber over the years and how it ended up finally in the hands of Maz Kanata. All of that became backstory and, in fact,
is thrown away in one line now in the movie. [DX] Back to Rey, the critiques of her
character are only the result of an examination of the rate of her achievements, that conflict
with virtually every Jedi the series has seen before. The only logical explanation the film
alludes to are her parents that abandon her, but their identities are, of course,
occluded from the audience as well. Even midi-chlorians would have been better
than The Force Awakens creating mystery for the sake of creating mystery. Almost all of the problems The Force Awakens
creates for itself and the rest of the trilogy exist because it desperately wants to be A New Hope, but it doesn't care how its new
characters don't fit into that story. Nothing demonstrates The Force
Awakens' misunderstanding of A New Hope and how to convey its themes
better than its mess of a third act. The second act of A New Hope
ended with the death of Obi-Wan Kenobi; its third act ended with the destruction of the Death Star. It's important that these two events were separate
if only for the immediate and obvious reason that the tension of one didn't steal from the other. But more importantly, it put the characters
into positions that forced their development. Luke fulfilled his dream of becoming a pilot, and Han Solo proved that he
was more than a smuggler for hire. Obi-Wan's death was an integral
part of both of these things happening. Luke was a small town boy who
Obi-Wan introduced to the rest of the world. Once Obi-Wan was gone, there
was no one left to hold Luke's hand. He's left to face his greatest challenge alone... except he wasn't, because he had friends. Because of Obi-Wan's death, Luke became his own man, which wouldn't have been possible if Obi-Wan fighting Vader and Luke taking on the Death Star
were happening at the same time. The Force Awakens combines the end of the second
act and entirety of the third of A New Hope into one, and while it would be unfair to say that it
doesn't benefit at least two of its characters, it is fair to say that it's not nearly as effective
overall because of its differences and additions. Playing the mentor is Han Solo. If Finn was the main character of the movie,
Han would have played the part very well. Han helps Finn navigate the world outside the First Order. After Finn defects, he's dubious, perhaps even cowardly, which is why it's great that he finally
confronts his fear of the First Order by taking on Kylo Ren after he kills Han. Kylo, on the other hand, has struggled
the entire film with accepting the dark side, and by killing his father, he finally does. So, what's the problem? You have two characters who are exactly the
kind of innovation of core Star Wars concepts that the movie needed to be new but
familiar fighting it out in the climax of the film. The problem, obviously, is
that Finn isn't the main character. And as all this is happening, the Resistance is
flying around trying to take out Starkiller Base. So we know that no one is in immediate
danger because if the Resistance succeeds, they will kill Rey, Finn and Chewbacca. Poe Dameron is unfairly caught in the middle of all this. It's not his character that's the
problem, it's his place in the final act. Poe doesn't achieve anything we don't
already believe him to be capable of. He's clearly an exceptional
pilot and therein lies the problem. The entire battle at Starkiller Base plays second
fiddle to what's going on with Rey, Finn and Kylo because Poe is already a complete character. There's nothing of particular interest
in his plight besides the spectacle, which means that there's considerably less investment
in this [TFA] than there was in this [A New Hope]. In A New Hope, the characters that
needed to grow take part in the last fight and the ones that didn't were on the sidelines, but this would have been difficult
to do in The Force Awakens when one of the characters that should have
been sidelined is the best pilot in the movie. It's this mistake and making Han Solo the
Obi-Wan of the film that spoil the third act. While Han verifies that everything
Rey has heard about the Jedi is true, he isn't a Jedi himself, which greatly
diminishes his potency in the role of mentor to the point where an entirely new character
has to be introduced to articulate the force to Rey. That means that Han's death isn't
directly related to Rey's awakening in the same way that Obi-Wan's was to Luke's. Luke didn't forgo his computer targeting
because he suddenly believed in the Force; he accepted the Force because
Obi-Wan asked him to trust him, which had much more impact than
Rey remembering the Force exists. What does Rey really gain from her fight with Kylo? What does she conquer in doing this? Finn faces his fears, Kylo kills
his, but what does Rey fear? And how does she interact with it by fighting Kylo? The only thing Rey seems to worry about
is returning to Jakku to wait for her parents, but that isn't really addressed
by the outcome of this fight; and she was already resolute in returning BB-8
to the Resistance before being kidnapped by Kylo. She fears being alone, as evidenced
by Kylo's interrogation of her, but if the end of the film is meant to solve that,
it does it poorly by nearly killing her only other friend. In the context of the third act, Rey feels like a
third wheel even though she's the main character. The Force Awakens laid a poor
foundation to build a trilogy off of. Every interesting and well executed idea it had was
sandwiched between an uninspired and confusing attempt to depict some of the early themes of Star Wars. By going about the creation of
the film's story in this manner, they established key details that future films
couldn't go without incorporating into their own stories. The biggest of these we haven't even talked about,
despite it being in the very first minute of the film. "Luke Skywalker has vanished." This single sentence crippled the sequel
trilogy worse than anything I've talked about so far. All I've critiqued up to this point is
only possible because of this line, and while The Force Awakens is certainly to blame for basing
the entire story of three films off Luke's disappearance, it's The Last Jedi that ruins the trilogy
because of what it's forced to do with that setup. For a film that questions the past as much as The Last Jedi, it's a such an obliviously derivative film that
trying to understand its goals to critique them is another tedious examination of comparisons. In my critique of the 2017 live
action Ghost In The Shell adaptation, I coined the term "greatest hits films", which are movies that take the most
recognizable aspects of their original work and paste them into theirs without any
consideration for narrative cohesion without context. The Last Jedi is undoubtedly a greatest hits film, and for all the flack The Force Awakens justifiably
gets for being a poor remake of A New Hope, The Last Jedi is a terrible amalgamation of Revenge of
the Sith, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of The Jedi. But this is only a part of why it fails. The Last Jedi had countless opportunities to
mend the issues created by The Force Awakens. And while it's not the fault of the film for
being put in that situation to begin with, it still makes almost every single one of those
issues worse by either not addressing them, amplifying them, or by betraying its characters. You see the first glimpse of this in the film's opening. I said that in The Force Awakens, the First
Order is demonstrably stronger than the Empire. In The Last Jedi, the First Order is
demonstrably stronger... In The Last Jedi, the First Order is
demonstrably stronger... than the First Order. All of these movies suffer from bigger is better, where more of an element that
we've seen in the past is shown with no regard for its implications or effects on the story. Here is Snoke's Mega Star Destroyer, the Supremacy, in comparison to any spacecraft
previously seen in the movies. [Johnson] So he needed a huge, huge ship. [DX] This is... ridiculous. Any tension that the First Order
imposed on the story is completely gone when there is seemingly no end to their strength. The last movie didn't explain how any of
this is possible, and neither does this one, so the struggles of the characters are always
undermined by the thought in the back of your head asking why any of this is happening. Instead of giving an explanation,
The Last Jedi doubles down with its absurdity and that translates to Snoke as well. In The Force Awakens, Snoke
is definitely strong with the Force, as proven by his ability to sway Kylo Ren to the dark side - but he is also visibly frail and obviously disabled. It's unclear how J.J. Abrams was going
to further incorporate Snoke into the story, but Rian Johnson clearly had different plans because
Snoke underwent a visual redesign under his request. [Ben Morris] Rian said to me very early
on, “I want to ground him back in reality. I want him to be a character that the other characters
in the film can actually respond to and actually relate to.” Rian eventually came to me and, quite
honestly, he said: “It’s not quite feeling right.” [Stephen Aplin] What Rian felt was that he actually
didn’t feel as much of a threat as he wanted him to. He felt like his deformity was too debilitating. [Morris] Rian and I sat down and we’ve
been thinking about what we could do, and... we came up with the idea to open his chest up.
We gave him broader, heavier-set shoulders. [Aplin] And we also scaled him up in the
process, we took him another half a foot taller. [DX] By grounding Snoke and making him a
character that everyone else can believably interact with, the film creates the perception that
Snoke is the strongest Force user ever seen. Each time it idiotically shows him using his abilities, it only serves to create further
intrigue into Snoke's origins because we know you can't become a master
at any of these things in a short period of time. Because of how nonchalantly the film presents Snoke's power, the film raises the expectation of an explanation
even if it wasn't responsible for Snoke's existence. With that said, Snoke's appearance marks
the only thing I feel The Last Jedi does well: his interaction with Kylo Ren. Kylo needed to move on from Vader's identity. It serves its purpose in The Force Awakens, but to keep this aspect of the character around when they've
clearly progressed past it would have been a mistake. By chastising Ren for his failure and
rightfully pointing out that he's no Vader, Snoke pushes Kylo to discard his ties to him. The destruction of the helmet is not only in character, but also the only intelligent way
the film pushes past... but also the only intelligent way
the film pushes past... the past. The rest of the film either does not understand
the past or intentionally misrepresents it in order to deconstruct and critique
the themes of the films it's copying. Luke's isolation, Rey's training and Snoke's
death are all things we've seen before. The issue is the same as it was in The Force Awakens: you cannot put new characters into
identical situations as old characters because the context will never match. In the case of The Last Jedi, that
means new motivations don't make sense because they were forced in order to match
the circumstances of the original situations. Luke Skywalker is the Yoda of this film. The Last Jedi's desecration of Luke stems directly from a
misunderstanding of Yoda's character and his circumstances. [Yoda] Into exile I must go. Failed, I have. [DX] At the end of Revenge of the Sith,
the Jedi were soundly defeated by Darth Sidious. Yoda failed not only to stop Sidious
but to even see him in his midst. If anyone should have been critical of the
arrogance of the Jedi, it would have been him. So why isn't he in The Empire Strikes Back? While George Lucas likely did not think that far
when The Empire Strikes Back's script was being drafted, Yoda's reasoning is still clear in both The
Empire Strikes Back and Revenge of the Sith. His exile to Dagobah is not out
of shame; it's for Luke and Leia. Because he failed to destroy Sidious, he
must exile himself until he can help train them to defeat Vader and The Emperor. He and Obi-Wan agree that they
will disappear until the time is right. Yoda clearly feels great lament for the fallen Jedi, but it doesn't preclude him from his duty, nor
does it cause him to sever his connection to the Force. And why would it? The Jedi aren't responsible for the actions
of the lunatic who sought to kill them. Yes, the Jedi failed, but if the Jedi didn't exist,
there would be no one to combat the Sith or the Empire. The reason Yoda goes into exile is because he can't
die before he trains either of the Skywalker children. If he stayed in the open, he surely would
have been killed given Sidious' power and reach. The Last Jedi not understanding the
characters of previous films is so utterly disastrous because it then projects this misconception
of them onto its own characters, in this case projecting what it thinks Yoda should
have felt and behaved like on Dagobah onto Luke. This is not Luke Skywalker; this is Yoda if your interpretation of Yoda is
that he's a failure who got all the Jedi killed. [Yoda] The greatest teacher, failure is. [DX] From there, it's easy to see why Luke's
behavior in this film is so jarring and inconsistent with the Luke Skywalker we see in the original trilogy. Luke's actions make a lot more sense
if you consider that this Luke is written to have knowledge and
retrospect entirely irrelevant to him - almost as if it's what the filmmaker thinks
the Jedi are vs. what Luke thinks the Jedi are. Luke, in this film, is nothing but
a mouthpiece for a commentary that doesn't fully understand what it's critiquing. Even the dialogue is reductive and almost fourth
wall-breaking, which doesn't sound anything like Luke. [Luke] You don’t need Luke Skywalker. - [Rey] Did you… hear a word I just said?
- [Luke] You think what? I’m gonna walk out with a laser sword
and face down the whole First Order? [DX] Luke was the one character who always believed, from manually landing the shot into
the exhaust port on the Death Star, to saving Han and Leia from Vader, and
then finally turning Vader back to the light. To even have him doubt his ability to bring Ben Solo back
into the light is already tremendously out of character, but to actually ignite his saber against him is
ludicrous, and a trap the film sets to have him "fail" when the character wouldn't
have behaved like this to begin with. Another side note here, but it's important to talk about
how ridiculous the idea of Snoke turning Ben Solo is. Snoke presumably never met Ben
Solo face to face until after Ben turned. There's little chance someone this formidable
would not be immediately recognized as dangerous, and therefore have been killed or
at the very least engaged by Luke. The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi actually
want us to believe that Snoke is so powerful he can turn someone to the
dark side with no physical contact. This implies that Snoke is far stronger than Palpatine, who spent over a decade gaining the
trust of Anakin Skywalker before turning him. Palpatine also had it easier because Ben Solo didn't
suffer through the death of his mother like Anakin did. This trilogy wanted its own Vader and Emperor but couldn't even be bothered to
steal either of their origins properly. Back to Luke: can heroes fail? Of course they can. Luke loses to Vader, Yoda loses to Sidious, but these failures are the result of pursuing
goals that align with previous characterization. In both those situations, the characters
crash and burn with their ideals intact, but in The Last Jedi, Luke's failure is at
odds with any of his previous behavior. Another relevant question is: can heroes change their minds? Absolutely, yes. In a series impacted so heavily
off of a single change of heart, it'd be disingenuous to say that characters can't change; but what happens to Luke isn't change. Luke Skywalker, who saw what the Empire did to the galaxy, who saw what the dark side did to his father, would not abandon his sister and let it all happen again. Rey is more Luke than Luke is in this film, which says a lot because of how badly Luke's character
arc is butchered so parts of it can be used for Rey's. If you examine Luke's arc through the original
trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back is his lowest point. After becoming a Rebel hero, he's eventually
brought back to reality by the Wampa mauling. Then he goes to Dagobah and behaves
exactly as Yoda predicts he would. His impatience and fear lead him to rush his training
and ignore what the Force tries to tell him in the cave. Losing his hand and Vader's revelation
are the consequences of his arrogance. In Return of the Jedi, he learns from this and
trusts the Force after feeling conflict in his father. He doesn't fall for the Emperor's
taunting, nor does he kill Vader. The trilogy ends with a character who
overcame their defeat and is complete because of it. The Last Jedi takes several elements of this arc for Rey, but it doesn't work because it
doesn't use them sequentially, and it doesn't seem to get that characters need to
reflect on what they consider personal failures to grow. They also need to have personal failures in the first place. If we chart Rey's arc after she defeats Kylo Ren, her lowest point comes in her disappointment that
Luke Skywalker isn't the father figure she wants him to be. Whoever this is definitely
isn't going to teach her anything, and her vision in the mirror cave only
reaffirms her feeling of abandonment. I think this, by itself, is great. The issue is that Rey has
had no real peril up to this point. A situation that shows why she needs training
or a master is never shown in this film or the last, so while yes, Rey is confused and in pain, she doesn't need Luke in the same way Luke needed Yoda. That means that Rey's disobedience
has the opposite effect on her character. Rey's telling off of Luke and
leaving him is actually a high point, because she realizes that she doesn't need this
bum to tell her who she is or what she should do. Rey leaving the island thinking that
she's right doesn't develop her character the way the same mentality
did to Luke, because Rey is right. Rey turning herself in is a copy of the scene
where Luke does the same in Return of the Jedi, meaning that for Rey, her moment where she
has a material loss to the villain is skipped over. Instead, Rey is only validated that there
was conflict in Kylo when Kylo kills Snoke. And then, with Kylo and... the magic of editing, they defeat seven elite Praetorian guards together,
proving that Rey never needed a master at all. By so greatly ruining Luke's character in this film, it gives Rey moral authority which absolves
her of any failure she could have grown from. Couple this with her insane unexplained power and
you have a character with no flaws or weaknesses. While the film has the right idea by
making her confirm her worst fear, that her parents are dead and
were nobodies, it makes no sense. Vader's reveal to Luke was the worst
thing he could have heard at the time; likewise, Kylo's confirmation of what Rey says
is also the worst thing she could hear at the time. The key difference is that Vader is an infinitely
more credible source of information than Ren. How would Kylo, who met Rey three or four
days ago, know the truth about her parents? Even the interrogation scene in The Force Awakens
wouldn't explain how Kylo knows, because he's wrong. He says they're in a ditch on Jakku, but in Rey's Force vision, someone
leaves her on the planet and rides off. Maz also tells Rey her parents aren't coming back. So were those her parents?
If they weren't, why were they shown? And if they were, how do they end up on
a ditch on Jakku when they're leaving it? That three or four days part is also
more important than the film realizes. In the span of a few days, Rey goes
from knowing nothing about the Force to taking on elite guards and later lifting all these rocks. Why does the Resistance even need Luke? Give Rey a week and she'll be stronger than him. Oh, and if you forgot, Rey's
parents were nobodies, so... nothing explains this at all. The only thing Rey was wrong about was Kylo's true intent, though no one but Luke suffers any consequence for
that because his sacrifice was almost a foregone conclusion due to how the film was structured. As long as the Resistance was going to be cornered on
Crait, they were going to need someone to bail them out and since there was no real plan after
the Resistance tracked through hyperspace, the only way Luke could have
survived was if he left with Rey. His death can't really be blamed on anyone but himself, which is why, while visually stunning, it has little impact. Luke's parting line is also patronizing and contrary
to how he feels earlier about his failure with Ben. [Luke] See you around, kid. [DX] The Last Jedi, admittedly,
didn't have much of a choice with Luke; he was already self-exiled in The Force Awakens. [Han Solo] Luke felt responsible. He just... walked away from everything. [DX] But it did have a choice
with Rey and its supporting cast. What this movie does with Finn and Poe is baffling, but before we get to that, I'd like to talk about
how this film revealed Leia's Force powers. This isn't complicated; if you are thrown into space, you will die. A character returning from an impossible
situation overshadowed an example of Kylo's conflict and a genuinely shocking moment. Leia using the Force feels more like a get
out of jail free card to shock the audience, but not actually pull the trigger
on killing off the character. Not that Leia can't use the Force, that's great, but using it in such a ridiculous manner creates
so many questions that it takes you out of the film. The movie doesn't even have the sense to reveal
Leia's Force powers as a way to escape the cave on Crait. As for the rest of the characters, Poe Dameron
goes from ace pilot to blithering idiot. He is flat out wrong on every call he makes, from taking on the Dreadnought to hinging his hopes on Finn. The former results in the death of every
Resistance bomber, and the latter just fails. The idea with Poe was to have him grow from hero to leader. Commendable, because following
and leading are two different things, but just making mistakes doesn't translate to growth, especially if the character never
acknowledges their mistake afterward. Taking on the Dreadnought was pointless to begin with,
since it implies The First Order have limited resources and destroying the Dreadnought
would be anything but a mosquito bite. Poe also states that the Dreadnought is a fleet killer, but the grand Republic fleet was
already destroyed in The Force Awakens. This measly fleet is the only Resistance
fleet left, and could have been taken out by any of the Star Destroyers accompanying the Dreadnought. The destruction of the Dreadnought
accomplishes absolutely nothing. Poe not being informed about Amilyn
Holdo's plan is stupid at every turn. On one hand, this lunatic doesn't
care how many people he gets killed, so Holdo giving him a reason to mutiny by revealing
that her plan is to... just leave would have been unwise. On the other, by not telling him, Holdo gave
him reason to conspire against her anyways because he was going to do what
he thought was right regardless. Poe is neither entirely right nor wrong on this matter, which complicates any lessons
he's supposed to take from this. Holdo's plan is terrible, and only
salvaged by a last second audible that addresses a problem Poe
correctly predicted would happen. At the end of the film, Poe finally
gets it, he sees the bigger picture; but the film could have arrived there with any number of
events that didn't result in such a sudden shift in character. By the way, here's this. [Johnson] He’s gonna win, he’s gonna have
the big “blowing up the Death Star” moment, but at a cost that, in terms of
the bigger picture, was not worth it. [DX] Poe already had that moment
- when he destroyed Starkiller Base. Why would he need it again? And why is Poe the only character of
the new cast that makes a grave mistake? This film's priorities were all over the place,
and there's no better example of that than Finn. I don't think The Last Jedi cared about Finn, at all. Its story is organized in a way
where Finn's addition to it is negligible; you could take him out of the movie and nothing changes. This is an issue that can be traced back to the end of
The Force Awakens where the character was incapacitated, but The Last Jedi shares the blame
as well for taking place directly after that. There's nothing for Finn to do under these circumstances,
which is why his involvement is so inconsequential. Finn was too important to be left out of the film, but also not important enough to go
with Rey to find Luke in the first place. If The Last Jedi was smart, it'd
have killed two birds with one stone and revealed Leia's Force powers as a way to
maintain the pretense that Finn was a main character. Instead, Finn's personality is reset, and any prior
hinting that he could one day be a Jedi is squashed despite having his potential mentor right in front of him. Ignoring how questionable it is that Finn is up
and about after Kylo nearly vaporized his spinal cord, what's more eyebrow-raising is that he's a coward again. I thought him fighting Kylo marked the end
of him constantly running from The First Order. It's hard to say with any certainty
that this behavior is inconsistent since no time passes between these two events, but it's very strange to go from a scene where he puts
his own life at risk defending someone he cares about to bailing on the people that saved his life. Rose is right; Finn is selfish for this. At the first sign of trouble, he's out of here. There's no reason a scene like this that
sets the character back should be in the film. I suspect it's here solely to introduce Rose,
which is the beginning of the end for Finn. Rose is the personification of one of the
most annoying things about The Last Jedi. There's countless times in this film where
characters aren't talking to other characters, they're talking directly to the audience. [Kylo Ren] They’re (Rey’s parents) dead.
In a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert. You have no place in this story.
[Rey sniffling] You come from nothing. You're nothing. [DX] Finn and Rose on Canto Bight
is the most boring example of this. Rose doesn't tell Finn, a child soldier, anything he didn't already know about the war machine. That's because her statements aren't meant
for Finn, they make no sense in that context, her statements were meant for us. Her entire character is, similar to Luke, a commentary, but it falls flat because it's the
most basic anti-war commentary ever. The film actually does a much better job
showing us the negatives of eternal conflict in its opening sequence. Finn and Rose also don't work together
simply because their plan is awful. Setting aside the fact that they don't even bring
back the code breaker they were originally looking for, their plan relies on turning off
the Supremacy's active tracker so the Resistance can't be
tracked through light speed again. Once the tracker is disabled, the Resistance
has six minutes to jump to light speed before anyone notices it's off. The issue is... how are they supposed to get off the
Supremacy and back to the Resistance... in six minutes’ time? They didn't even plan for this until they were on the ship. [Rose] Got time to figure out how we get back to the fleet? [Finn] I know where the nearest escape pods are. They get caught because the idea
that no one would recognize Finn, or at the very least not notice that these
people don't belong on this ship, is comical. Then they're both saved from execution by
Holdo ramming into the Supremacy at light speed, which only happens because
they couldn't disable the tracker. So... they win despite losing, which makes everything they did... which makes everything they did... pointless. Finn doesn't even get to beat
Captain Phasma; she falls to her death. Finn says he is Rebel scum, which
the film uses as a defining moment, but this is something we already
knew by the end of The Force Awakens. The Last Jedi is the one that puts this into question
and then arrives at the same conclusion anyways, proving that everything Finn does from
the moment he wakes up to arriving on Crait is a waste of time. Finn's suicide run on Crait is another mind-boggling moment, as it once again implies that the
First Order have limited resources and/or that the Resistance can do anything to them. If the First Order wants to get into the base on Crait, something tells me that just destroying
this cannon wouldn't stop them. This is a problem caused by the
aforementioned bigger is better mentality. The First Order just had their flagship split in half and nearly all of the Star Destroyers
accompanying it obliterated, but they can still deploy all of
these fighters and a legion of AT-M6s. Why would destroying this cannon
impede them when nothing else has? To say Finn is wasted in this film
would be a gross understatement. What the previous film promised was taken from him, and he was relegated to a minimal role
that made his character look confused at best and foolish at worst. The Last Jedi was a disaster. It ruined the trilogy with its widespread character
assassination because it's an exceptionally arrogant film. In order to deconstruct something, you need to
be able to articulate or demonstrate its premise. It has to be presented before it's
interrogated as a theme or trope so you understand what's being picked apart. The Last Jedi's obsession with challenging what
you think you know about Star Wars is infuriating because it never argues for those ideas in good faith and comes to its conclusions based
on a blatant misrepresentation of them. You can't have a cohesive trilogy when
the second part of the story blows up everything established in the first and
betrays everything about the original work. After the release of The Last Jedi, the
biggest question going forward was... how is a third film going to work? The conclusion to the sequels was going to
have to deal with its main villain being killed, its universe shrunk, and the
unfortunate passing of Carrie Fisher. It's difficult to say whether any film could have
withstood this amount of logistical complications, but what we finally got was worse
than anyone could have imagined. The Rise of Skywalker is the least
Star Wars Star Wars film ever made. Of all the ways that the sequels betray Star Wars, mutating its space fantasy into generic
science fiction is their worst offense. I stress generic here because there's a difference between
science fiction and the perception of science fiction. These films are the latter,
and here's the problem with that. Star Wars is not a series that has
ever been defined by its science. Any attempts to demystify its intangible elements
like the Force have been met with great criticism because they over explain, contradict, and
remove mystery from a fantastical element that helped create investment in its characters. Star Wars' greatest success is how relatable a story it is, despite it taking place "a long
time ago in a galaxy far, far away." There's a part of us in Star Wars. The fantasy in the story breaks down aspects
of life and reconstructs them in unreal ways that we better understand under the lens of entertainment. This is why Star Wars is as
much for adults as it is for children. Its themes don't stop resonating when you grow up, you just see them differently the
more you understand the world. Science fiction is antithetical to Star Wars
because the series isn't about the impact the science and technology of
the universe have on the characters. Star Wars also doesn't conflate its
fantasy elements with science and technology and exaggerate their importance to tell its story. While it could be argued that the prequels moved
the series closer to the science fiction category with the introduction of midi-chlorians
and other similar elements, it's the sequels that definitely push
Star Wars over the edge in this regard. Because they don't have a coherent or mapped story, the sequels have to rely on
iconography to carry their failed retread. Lightsabers, ships, and the Force have
more relevance in the story than ever. The sequels are less about the characters and more
about how the characters are affected by these things. It's literally in the title. The Force Awakens, which places heavy
importance on the Force before any of its characters. This is junk science fiction, the kind that cherry picks cool science
things and displays them ad nauseam to make up for a lack of substance. The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are both guilty of this, but at least they still try to hearken
back to the original themes of Star Wars to flesh out and realize their characters. The Rise of Skywalker... The Rise of Skywalker... gives up. There is no relatable story being told here. There is no story being told... There is no story being told... period. The Rise of Skywalker is nothing but a collection
of cool science things from the Star Wars universe that destroys the nuance of the franchise and
puts the final nail in the coffin for the sequels. [Poe Dameron] We’ve decoded the intel from
the First Order spy, and it confirms the worst. Somehow Palpatine returned. ?????????? [DX] The Rise of Skywalker is a do-over, a complete repossession of the story by J.J. Abrams. This kills the film, because the story it's trying to tell is just as rancid as the one it
spends so much of its time correcting. "The dead speak!" is the only evidence
you need that this trilogy had no plan. The Last Jedi killing off Snoke and this film's
refusal to make Kylo Ren the central villain writes it into a corner where the only
credible antagonist left is the Emperor. "Somehow Palpatine returned" is almost self-aware, with the line explicitly saying "we don't know how
he's back and we're not going to try to explain it either." As it turns out, the Emperor has actually been in
the shadows acting as puppet master the entire time and is responsible for everything in
The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. There's numerous questions
that arise due to this revelation, but I've narrowed them down to the most important. 1. How does Palpatine survive exploding
and the explosion of the second Death Star? 2. If Palpatine actually did die, how
does he come back to life in his cloned body? 3. If Palpatine is able to clone himself
and transfer his consciousness into another body, why doesn't he just pick up where he
left off at the end of Return of the Jedi? 4. If Palpatine is able to clone himself
and transfer his consciousness into another body, why does he create Snoke? 5. If Palpatine is able to create beings
with strong Force abilities such as Snoke, why doesn't he transfer himself to that
body instead of the rotting body he's in? 6. Does Snoke have autonomy? If so, why? 7. If Palpatine made Snoke, but his plan
is to have his granddaughter Rey succeed him, why is Snoke hellbent on killing her? 8. Who did Palpatine have relations
with to conceive Rey's father? 9. If Rey's father is really a clone,
why didn't Palpatine inhabit his body? 10. If Rey's father is a clone of
Palpatine who couldn't use the Force... why can Snoke? 11. If Rey's father was created on Exegol, how did he leave? I've gotten a bit ahead of myself, but you get the point. The return of the Emperor is undoubtedly
the most illogical plot point in the series, and equally dumb are the attempts to justify it. [Chris Terrio] The idea came up of, well,
what if Palpatine lived on in some way? Within about thirty seconds of discussing
that idea, we just knew that it was the right idea because we knew that this has always
been a story of Skywalkers and Palpatines. [DX] No, that's not what Star Wars is about at all. Reducing Star Wars to a story about two bloodlines
ignores every message the films have about life as told through the adventures of the characters. Bringing back Palpatine doesn't even serve the purpose
of having an obstacle for the heroes to overcome because his addition to the story is
out of nowhere and symbolizes nothing. He is now just evil man as opposed to
cunning authoritarian or the heart of temptation. Centering itself around the
Emperor is the film's greatest mistake. By forcing the story to both retcon and
contort itself to rationalize his involvement, it breaks every character. The last we saw of Kylo Ren,
he discarded his ties to the past, killed Snoke and became Supreme Leader. In this movie, he rebuilds his mask
and is relegated to errand boy again after he becomes a pawn to another
master once Palpatine and... after he becomes a pawn to another
master once Palpatine and... the Final Order are revealed to be more powerful than the First Order. We've already gone over how strong The First
Order is and how even after Holdo maneuvers, their power is absolute. The Rise of Skywalker nerfs the First Order
by overstating their failure at Starkiller Base to make it seems like they need
Palpatine's fleet or they're in real trouble, all of which is in direct contradiction
to everything shown in The Last Jedi and its opening crawl that says: and its opening crawl that says:
"The FIRST ORDER reigns." This takes Kylo several steps back as a character. He switches between a carbon
copy of himself in The Force Awakens and an exposition megaphone only needed when the
movie wants to show or tell you something about Rey. More on Kylo later. Palpatine's reemergence naturally draws the attention
of the Resistance as well and sends Rey, Finn and Poe on a wild goose chase that lead to Rey's origins. Because all of this is about her, Poe has no real purpose and it reduces Finn to emotional support for Rey. [Finn] REY!
[lightsabers colliding] [DX] Rey is unbearable in this film. The start of the movie shows her running a training course, but it's too little too late for this to excuse
everything we've already seen her do. She's not going on missions with
Finn and Poe because of this training, but why she even needs it is a mystery
since she was already equal with Kylo before it. None of this matters anyways because the search for
the Sith wayfinder gives Rey even more unearned power that this simple training course couldn't possibly explain. Let's talk about the Force Dyad. In The Last Jedi, the force conversations between
Rey and Kylo were a way for Rian Johnson to cheat and have two characters in distant
locations interacting with one another. The issue isn't cheating, Force ghosts
were George Lucas' way of cheating; but the difference is that one form
of cheating guides the characters and the other moves the plot forward
without actually developing them. The conversations were explained by Snoke saying
he bridged their minds together through the Force. In The Rise of Skywalker, there is no Snoke, so the conversations are explained by a
connection through the Force between Rey and Kylo that has always existed. This means that Snoke was lying for unknown reasons, and that Rey is so powerful she's half of a Force occurrence that is only seen once every few generations. The Dyad is just a cheap excuse to give Rey limitless power and to have Kylo's intentions to kill
Palpatine remain hidden from him. The Force conversations are no longer just conversations, they are dimensional teleportation. Force healing is basically time manipulation. Neither ability resembles the Force; in fact, Rey has more in common with
Dr. Manhattan than she does with any Jedi. Force healing specifically creates a
number of questions applicable to every trilogy. Why does Qui-Gon Jinn die? Obi-Wan should have just healed him using the Force. Rey does the exact same to
Kylo as Maul did to Qui-Gon. Unfortunately, Obi-Wan did not run the
training course and cannot heal his master. Facetiousness aside, the exploitation of the
Force to fix every problem the characters have is even more reason you can't invest in any of them. The Force is again used as a get out of jail free card instead of a test of a character's
determination and resolve. It's just a power all of these superheroes have
at this point, and it's prevalent throughout the film, but the scene where Rey and Kylo use it to fight
over the Sith dagger on the First Order transport exposes another critical flaw with the movie. [zapping, explosions] [DX] There was something to be gained from this scene. It's the only shocking part of the movie. Yes, Rey's use of Sith lightning
presents its own set of issues, but for the first time, we see her make a mistake. Even if accidentally, she lets her powers
go too far and it kills one of her friends. Except it doesn't. Chewbacca is alive in the very next scene because The Rise of Skywalker
kills virtually all of its payoffs: Chewbacca's death, C-3PO's memory wipe, Kylo being stabbed, the destruction of Kijimi, etc. It's impossible to care about the movie when
it constantly goes back and forth on everything. The lack of payoffs, the retcons, the Force abilities... they all say the same thing. Nothing means anything. The story the film wants to tell isn't properly set up, so it has to make up its own rules as it
goes along to get where it needs to be. Just look at Kylo Ren's "redemption." Who is this? Star Wars has or at least had a very specific set
of rules for how people can reappear after death. This is not a Force ghost because Han Solo was not a Jedi. So, this is a hallucination and an example of how much
this movie cares more about getting all of this over with than it does about being Star Wars. Kylo's redemption is not earned, he doesn't do anything that redeems him
because he forgives himself through his delusions. Kylo is only redeemed because he's finished feeding
Rey the information the story wants her to know: that she's the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine. This is the height of the film's cluelessness. Rey being the granddaughter of the Emperor means nothing. We're well past the point where
this could explain how powerful Rey is. It does nothing for her character because every one
of these films refused to show Rey commit mistakes that could cloud her judgment and lead her to the dark side. The foreshadowing in this film in
particular is more funny than it is serious, as it implies Rey will become a
shark if she falls to the dark side. It's difficult to not make light of
this because of how absurd it is. The Palpatine reveal could have worked
on some level considering Rey's premise of abandoned woman looking for purpose. It could have been haunting for her to
learn that the only blood relative she has is a genocidal tyrant who also killed her parents. The reason it isn't and this doesn't work, besides the obvious ways in which
this reveal makes no sense whatsoever, is because Rey's fears are
contradicted through the whole movie. Rey is not alone; she is surrounded by friends she
gained from being a perfect character. None of the dark side temptation
is actually rooted in reality. The idea that Rey will end up all alone or on the
throne is preposterous if you just look around her. Why would she fall to the dark side? What great suffering has she brought upon herself? Her only mistake is mended almost instantly. She has the power to control life and death, which is what Anakin fell to
the dark side in the pursuit of. There is no reason for this character
with no faults and unimaginable power to be tempted by the dark side, except for the movie wanting
to have its cake and eat it too. It wants a character who can do anything
while simultaneously harboring so much insecurity that they could turn at any given moment. Rey's conversation with Luke about her lineage is also
devoid of any substantive perspective on this matter. This conversation could have been
about people making their own choices. Anakin gave into the dark side, yet Luke didn't. Luke wasn't defined by the actions of his
father and Rey shouldn't be by her grandfather's, but this is never mentioned. Luke just tells her she has to face the
Emperor because Jedi face their fears. Speaking of Luke, The Rise of Skywalker
can't even do nostalgia pandering without breaking the rules of the universe. Admittedly, seeing Luke again and
watching him raise the X-Wing out of the water put a huge smile on my face. This is the only time in three films
we see Luke actually behave like Luke. But if Luke can grab a lightsaber
and he can use the Force... is he still a ghost? This is an important question
leading into the film's third act. Everything comes to a head on Exegol,
otherwise known as green screen land. Bigger is better strikes again with the
Final Order's fleet of Star Destroyers and begs the question of why the bad guys are
the only people capable of building these ships. Much like Palpatine's reappearance, the Final
Order and Exegol only exist out of desperation and it's clear no thought was put into any of them. We just talked about how Rey turning
to the dark side would be nonsensical, so her confrontation with the
Emperor falls flat on its face. He tries turning her using the same tactic he
did against with Luke, an appeal to the fear of loss, but it doesn't make sense in this context. [Palpatine] The only family you have here… [Palpatine] The only family you have here… is me. [DX] The entirety of the film plays with the idea
that Rey is afraid that she'll side with Palpatine because he's her only family, making her turn inevitable - but he tempts her by saying that her
new family will die if she doesn't join him. So which is it? Why would she care that the Emperor is
her only family if the basis of her temptation is that the family she actually cares about is in danger? If you apply the same logic to Return of the Jedi, Luke would be more concerned about ending
up like Vader than the death of his friends. And that's the problem: Rey's
conflict is fear about her fate. Luke's conflict was fear about the fate of others. Once Ben Solo arrives to help Rey,
the superheroes do more teleportation. The Knights of Ren are... a joke. They have no coherent origin story
because no one could decide on one. They're destroyed like goofs, and Rey
taking on the Emperor's guards is worse. They all have blasters and none of them can
land a shot on a target they're all surrounding. Once Rey and Ben stand together,
Palpatine discovers the Dyad between them, but there is simply no logic in
Palpatine not knowing about it before this. He's been pulling the strings all along
and has been in Ben's mind for years. Now, his inability to do the same with Rey is
something that creates its own myriad of questions, but you'd think he would know once
she had her awakening in the Force. The most obvious explanation
for him not knowing about the Dyad is that it's a measure to keep the story from
contradicting itself more than it already does. If Palpatine always knew they shared the Dyad, it makes the previous films pointless since he
could have just had them sent to Exegol much earlier to steal their life force and remake himself. The Emperor's power, once he does steal
Rey and Ben's life force, is once again unlimited, and yet another instance of the film
not having the slightest attention to detail. Yes, this is insane, but the film could have partially explained
Palpatine getting a large boost in strength by emphasizing that Exegol is the Sith home world. It'd have made this a bit easier to
swallow and would have explained why, despite being able to interact with the world around them, the Force ghosts of past Jedi don't
show up to help Rey in physical form. It's not a stretch that their power would
be suppressed on an ancient Sith planet. Unfortunately, the film chooses to not
explain any of this and contradict itself, which is a shame. There's also the issue of this
many Force ghosts even existing, but I think the prequels are also to blame for this. They made becoming a Force
ghost a technique a Jedi had to learn instead of something more thematically intangible. Rey hearing their voices is
fantastic from a technical perspective. This scene's inclusion of prequel actors and voice actors
from the animated series ties the franchise together well. You can even hear Alec Guinness's Obi-Wan in there. It doesn't mean much for the story, however. We know Rey isn't really alone and
she's already so strong with the Force that the only reason she's the underdog in this situation
is because she had her own power stolen from her. Her defeating Palpatine makes him an
idiot, as he kills himself with his own lightning. He learned nothing from the last time this happened to him. A death so unsatisfying is to be
expected given how uninspired the film is. Rey's own death is actually just a
way for the film to kill off Ben Solo. Kylo Ren was, from start to finish, a Darth Vader clone. He dies after his redemption because Anakin did first. But let's compare the level of
maturity in both of these deaths. Anakin's dying wish was to see
his son with his own two eyes, and not the eyes of the monster he became. This isn't a reward as much as it is an
acknowledgment that Anakin was wrong. His disfigured state is a cautionary tale
against making the wrong choices in life. There's none of that with Ben. First of all, he doesn't even beat the Emperor, Rey does. He then uses his super powers to revive her and gets
a big smooch for finally behaving like a decent person. What is this if it isn't a reward? How does this even make sense? [Rey] You're a monster. [gunshot]
[Ben grunts] [Rey] Murderous snake. [Rey grunts] [DX] Anakin's death was used as the final
stepping stone for Luke's development as a character, and Ben's is used so Rey... and Ben's is used so Rey... has a love interest? This isn't even the last time the
movie misunderstands Anakin. In the final scene of the film, Rey takes
Anakin and Leia's lightsabers to Tatooine and buries them in Luke's old home. Why would Anakin want his saber buried in a place he hated? He was a slave on Tatooine. His mother was tortured and died there. Luke obviously hated it there too. Of all the planets to bury the
remnants of the Skywalker family, the movie chose Tatooine because
it, along with the rest of these films, always favored the familiar over what was actually logical. The sequel trilogy ends with Rey
from nowhere becoming Rey Skywalker, which would have been a perfect ending... if any of it was actually earned. [DX] The Star Wars sequels are terrible. They're barely a trilogy. They're tangentially related films
trying to tell three different stories and all of them missed the point. Star Wars is not about the Force
or the power it gives the user. It's not about lightsabers or battle ships. It's not about aliens and droids. Star Wars is about life. It's about coming of age. It's about trust, deception, love, fear, and everything else that we experience from
the second we're born to the moment we die. The sequels thought that Star Wars
was about the tools used to tell the story and became a story about those tools, costing them their fantasy and
ability to relate in the process - something that could have been easily
avoided if the people working on them understood what they were making sequels
to and planned the movies out in advance. There is no magic secret to making good Star Wars films. What they need to be is clear
and boils down to one question. Are they good storytellers? The answer as it pertains to the sequels... The answer as it pertains to the sequels... is no. And instead of going down as a triumphant return, the legacy of the sequels... the legacy of the sequels... will be failure. [DX] Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed the video. I'd now like to give a very big thank
you to everyone who became a patron during this production of this video. If you'd like to support the content, you
can became a patron at patreon.com/DX, where you'll be featured in the next video's credits. A very big thank you goes out to: [patron names shown on screen] :)
[patron names shown on screen] [patron names shown on screen] not happening anytime soon omegalul [patron names shown on screen] Thank you for supporting the content, and thank you for supporting the vision.
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