[Film] Spolieriffic Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Discussion *SPOILERS*

[RossyG]

If there hadn't been a loud outcry from some of the Star Wars fans, we may have. Rian Johnson tried to evolve star wars beyond Skywalker family troubles, and the noisier fans rejected it. With a lot of venom. It burned Disney so they tried to cast off as much of the Last Jedi as they could.


As of now, Rian Johnson is still expected to work on his own trilogy set in the star wars universe, unrelated to the Skywalker saga, so it may be something he picks up in his stories. Or Disney may be too scared people won't come because of the venom TLJ received. Or Johnson may just decide it's not worth it.

I can see why people hated TLJ. The characters were badly handled, the plotting was inept, and crucially it ripped up the “roadmap” for the trilogy that JJ Abrams had worked out prior to The Force Awakens. This was why the original director of the third film quit and Abrams was lured back.

Johnson was the wrong writer-director for such a film. Postmodern iconoclasm is fine for films like Knives Out and Brick, but not for an established franchise.

If the rumours are correct...

*Robert Iger, The CEO of Disney, wont let Johnson near another Star Wars Film again. He felt TLJ damaged the brand and led to the failure of Solo and the lukewarm reaction to merchandise.

*Iger also meddled with Rise of Skywalker, ordering drastic reshoots that removed the main antagonist, played by Matt Smith, and replaced him with the Emperor.

*JJ Abrams only came back as he was promised full control, that was taken from him and he’s not happy with the final film.

But I repeat, these are rumours so believe them if you like.

 

[Meade's Ball]

Can we talk about the chimpanzee?

 

[Triggaaar]

-Palpatine had a son something that was completely missing from the original trilogy, did he have them after surviving the exploding death star or before?

Before. He didn't survive the death star, he died. He wasn't brought back to life until he took life from Rey and Ben.

 

[Triggaaar]

Maybe

No, it's not maybe, that is what happened.

but it's still a contradiction. Threepio wrote it off as an option, to suggest the memory wipe would be permanent

I don't think you're right. I'm sure he just said it was a risk, not that there was no chance he'd get his memory back.

and a few scenes later he's back to his old self.

As indeed he would be.

It irritated me that they kept going back and contradicting themselves. It's not even contradicting a previous instalment, which would be bad enough, but to not even keep to what you've written in your own film.

So apart from this bit, that you've got wrong, when else in the film did they keep contradicting themselves?

 

[BadFish]

The Sith have a devastating weapon that can destroy planets. It will give them ultimate power over the galaxy unless a small band of rebels can destroy it before it is ready to be unleashed.

I feel like I have seen this before, one or twice....

 

[Acker79]

No, it's not maybe, that is what happened.
I don't think you're right. I'm sure he just said it was a risk, not that there was no chance he'd get his memory back.

As indeed he would be.

So apart from this bit, that you've got wrong, when else in the film did they keep contradicting themselves?

Maybe. We're all basing this on one viewing, right? I am remaining open to the possibility I missed something. You were at the start of your post ("I don't think you're right") so your certainty at the end ("You've got it wrong") seems ill placed.

The scene played to me like they were, if not explicitly saying, they were strongly suggesting that when Threepio loses his memory it will be for good. ("I'm taking one last look...") Then he gets his memory back.

As for when else, there's a big post up there, it's the same one you quoted, with several other instances.

 

[Acker79]

Before. He didn't survive the death star, he died. He wasn't brought back to life until he took life from Rey and Ben.

He looked pretty alive to me before taking their life force. or whatever.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

He looked pretty alive to me before taking their life force. or whatever.

I thought he looked more like a hologram.

 

[Triggaaar]

You were at the start of your post ("I don't think you're right")

I was trying not to antagonise.

so your certainty at the end ("You've got it wrong") seems ill placed.

You seem to be looking for an argument.

The scene played to me like they were, if not explicitly saying, they were strongly suggesting that when Threepio loses his memory it will be for good. ("I'm taking one last look...")

He was taking one last look because he's a pessimistic bugger (you're familiar with Star Wars, right?). Look, they definitely didn't say his memory would be gone and that was that. He said there was a change R2 could restore it, and they said to 3PO 'you know the odds better than anyone'. I didn't think for a second they wouldn't get his memory back, that would just be weird (from a story point of view).

As for when else, there's a big post up there, it's the same one you quoted, with several other instances.

That seemed like a post of things you didn't like, not a list of contradictions. Did you mention more than one other contradiction in that post?

 

[Chicken Run]

Can we talk about the chimpanzee?

Yes , his ears were strange, maybe he was a relative of Ham?

 

[Bold Seagull]

I thought he looked more like a hologram.

Why would he need Rey to strike down a hologram? I thought the whole pipes and machinery coming down was keeping him somehow alive, the life force from Rey&Ren released him from needing the machines.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Why would he need Rey to strike down a hologram? I thought the whole pipes and machinery coming down was keeping him somehow alive, the life force from Rey&Ren released him from needing the machines.

Looked as in appearance, rather than actual.

 

[Seaber]

So does Adam Driver plant Daisy Ridley in order to start the Skywalker lineage ? Not seen previous or this film so only surmising.

No. The Skywalker mantle has been passed to her by Luke, Leia and Ben, even though she doesn't have Skywalker blood, she is now a Skywalker.

Where the **** did the Emporer's body come from? He seemed to blow up in Death Star 2, before the Deathstar itself was blown up.

I think it's a combination of cloning and Sith magic. The clones of Jango Fett were good, but we're phased out by the Empire, so I don't think he's a Kamino-brand clone. In the old Extended Universe, Palpatine returns by cloning himself and transferring his spirit into a new host, which is what I think is going on here, however as he doesn't have access on Exegol to the best cloning facilities he has to be hooked up to that machine and is blind with badly formed fingers.

Right now we don't know for sure how he got his body back, but it'll probably be in the novelisation coming out in April or in a future comic or novel.

Does anyone remember the young lad towards the end of TLJ who force moved the broom/shovel, was fully expecting something more from that??

I think he was always just meant to show that Rose and Finn had sparked a rebellion in him. TROS is set only a few months after TLJ so too soon to see if the kid becomes some sort of Jedi.

Who was the old lady who said ‘no one has been here for a long time’? Any significance or just a random character?

Assuming they've always been a native of Tatooine, the only characters it could be are Amee or Melee (in TPM there are two girls in Anakin's group of friends), Kira (old woman in TPM with aching bones), or a couple of cut/background characters from ANH - Camie, one of Luke's friends and a few cantina patrons. She was quite wizened from memory, so the two from ANH would probably be too young, TROS happening 35 years later would make them about 55-60 years old. Kira would be well over a hundred, TPM being set 68 years before TROS, while the kids would be in their late seventies.

The Visual Dictionary or novelisation normally answer questions like this, but I reckon she's probably no-one we've met before.

 

[Seaber]

In Star Wars the timeline is demonstrated by either being BBY or ABY (before/after the Battle of Yavin). This is the Palpatine Sequel Trilogy timeline as far as I can work out.

4 ABY Palpatine dies.
5 ABY Ben Solo born.
15 ABY Rey Born.
About 20 ABY Rey is abandoned when the assassin Ochi abducts and kills her parents (if Rey is about 5).
About 22-24 ABY Snoke starts to corrupt Ben Solo (his late teens).
28 ABY Ben Solo destroys the Jedi Temple.
34-35 ABY Sequel Trilogy films.

Just going by the actor's age, Rey's dad was about thirty when he was killed, meaning he was born that would be roughly nine years before the Battle of Yavin. Palpatine would have been about 75.

 

[Triggaaar]

I think it's a combination of cloning and Sith magic.

I don't think it can be cloning, because his body was a mess - eg, there was flesh missing from his hands. A clone could have been a young Palpetine, rather than the aged and twisted one we were used to. I wish they just had him as the mentor to the likes of Snoke, as Yoda and Obiwan were. Although I could go with the idea of brining him back to life, I'd rather they didn't have a body like his to start with.

 

[Bold Seagull]

In Star Wars the timeline is demonstrated by either being BBY or ABY (before/after the Battle of Yavin). This is the Palpatine Sequel Trilogy timeline as far as I can work out.

4 ABY Palpatine dies.
5 ABY Ben Solo born.
15 ABY Rey Born.
About 20 ABY Rey is abandoned when the assassin Ochi abducts and kills her parents (if Rey is about 5).
About 22-24 ABY Snoke starts to corrupt Ben Solo (his late teens).
28 ABY Ben Solo destroys the Jedi Temple.
34-35 ABY Sequel Trilogy films.

Just going by the actor's age, Rey's dad was about thirty when he was killed, meaning he was born that would be roughly nine years before the Battle of Yavin. Palpatine would have been about 75.

Palpatine was supposedly born on Naboo 84 BBY. He was revealed as the Sith Lord I think at 19 BBY, so if he had a son as leader of the Republic at that point pre-deformed face and dark lordness, reasonable to assume his son was at least 34 at Rey's Birth and 39 at his death.

 

[Chicken Run]

I don't think it can be cloning, because his body was a mess - eg, there was flesh missing from his hands. A clone could have been a young Palpetine, rather than the aged and twisted one we were used to. I wish they just had him as the mentor to the likes of Snoke, as Yoda and Obiwan were. Although I could go with the idea of brining him back to life, I'd rather they didn't have a body like his to start with.

I was rather hoping at the end when she looked over at the skywalkers gosts’s that’s all the others would be there including Liam Neeson [emoji29]

 

[Bold Seagull]

I don't think it can be cloning, because his body was a mess - eg, there was flesh missing from his hands. A clone could have been a young Palpetine, rather than the aged and twisted one we were used to. I wish they just had him as the mentor to the likes of Snoke, as Yoda and Obiwan were. Although I could go with the idea of brining him back to life, I'd rather they didn't have a body like his to start with.

If we take Luke's fall when confronted by Vader on Cloud City into a vent tunnel, then we can assume that when Vader chucks the emperor down the hole in ROTJ, that equally he may have slid into some side vent or something. Luke then had time to drag the Vader's body from the emperor's citadel, down to a hanger bay and fly off. There isn't any reason that a Sith guard, or loyal person was able to locate/find the emperor's body and head off in that same time frame. The lifeless body then taken back to Sith-World and plugged into darkness pipes that somehow keep something residual alive.

He then cannot reveal himself as he is too weak and could easily be killed (a Sith trait...) by whomever he mentor's when they realise he is weak. One thing we know about Palpatine from his Naboo senator days, is that he doesn't mind a long term strategy.

 

[Seaber]

I don't think it can be cloning, because his body was a mess - eg, there was flesh missing from his hands. A clone could have been a young Palpetine, rather than the aged and twisted one we were used to. I wish they just had him as the mentor to the likes of Snoke, as Yoda and Obiwan were. Although I could go with the idea of brining him back to life, I'd rather they didn't have a body like his to start with.

Maybe, but if the cloned cells were taken after his 'transformation' in ROTS, all the clone would become could be the wrinkled, broken form of Palpatine.

Or if his body is an artificial copy of the original, like Snoke being an artificial being, its not possible to create something perfect.

I don't think he can be a resurrected version of his old body as that must have been destroyed on the second Death Star, unless someone rescued his body and too it to Exegol, perhaps Pryde, or some similar fanatic. Its a bit too convinent though. It could explain the melted finger tips though.

Palpatine was supposedly born on Naboo 84 BBY. He was revealed as the Sith Lord I think at 19 BBY, so if he had a son as leader of the Republic at that point pre-deformed face and dark lordness, reasonable to assume his son was at least 34 at Rey's Birth and 39 at his death.

Yeah that would work - I think the parents will have been cast too young, but that doesn't really matter. My girlfriend is a massive fan of Jodie Comer and didn't notice it was her playing Rey's mum, so they aren't on screen long enough to properly scrutinise. It'll be interesting to find out who Rey's paternal grandmother is - if anyone.

 

[Triggaaar]

If we take Luke's fall when confronted by Vader on Cloud City into a vent tunnel, then we can assume that when Vader chucks the emperor down the hole in ROTJ, that equally he may have slid into some side vent or something. Luke then had time to drag the Vader's body from the emperor's citadel, down to a hanger bay and fly off. There isn't any reason that a Sith guard, or loyal person was able to locate/find the emperor's body and head off in that same time frame. The lifeless body then taken back to Sith-World and plugged into darkness pipes that somehow keep something residual alive.

Excellent, I like it.

He then cannot reveal himself as he is too weak and could easily be killed

Didn't he say he was dead? I'll have to check exactly what he said to Rey.