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gffa · 3 years

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I know I've brought this up before, but how much of the fandom reception of the prequels do you think stemmed from the genre dissonance? That the prequels, genre-wise, are closer to high fantasy, while the OT is more an adventure/space western/underdog triumph story.

The prequels also have elements more reminiscent of a romantic period/court drama/Shakespearean tragedy, while if you consider the underdog angle of the OT, the OT also seems kinda similar to some of those inspirational movies about sports teams or something, or a shonen anime with the "Power of Friendship".

I'm just saying, these are rather disparate genres that tend to attract different demographics of people.

And not many people tend to be... great about understanding why they don't like something, much less putting it into words, or understanding that they can dislike something without that something being actually bad. (For example, instead of "I just don't really like [thing]," the usual statement is something along the lines of "[thing] absolutely sucks.")

So the usual response is trying to find (and gather) solidarity while putting down or being condescending towards any dissent, and trying to justify their own dislike. (*gestures vaguely towards pineapple on pizza*)

And historically, it's not uncommon for people to... react strongly towards things they find... different or abnormal, which they judge based on themselves, their emotional response to something, and what they're used to.

Looking at kids, this behavior is... fairly normal. "You're weird," "ew, why do you like that, that's gross," "that's stupid," and so on. A lot of kids/teens/young adults also get defensive really easily. And let's face it--adults are basically just older, taller kids who've had to deal with more of life.

(To be honest, I also get defensive really easily. A lot of people do, and it's... it's normal. The defensive reaction can be lashing out, denial, or just being passive-aggressive or staying silent and tuning it out or mentally rolling your eyes at it. But I'm trying to work on it, because just because it's normal doesn't mean it's a good reaction.)

So, what I'm wondering is whether some fans dislike the prequels simply because it's a different genre...

...but instead of realizing that, they try to defend and justify their dislike by pointing fingers and criticizing whatever stood out or looked different from the OT or cherry-picking details/taking things out of context or making negative conflations (that can be refuted).

Because it's not about logic, it's about how they feel. And people want to feel justified and validated, and we want to feel like we're right and we enjoy staying in our comfort zones. So... yeah. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LOL, okay, this response is going to be really disjointed because I went off in like a dozen different tangents and even then it's not enough to cover everything, so just kind of read this in a Scattered Thoughts Nerd kind of tone, where I'm staring off into the distance because Navel Gazing Gets Me Going Sometimes. 😂 In my experience, it's sort of a mix. I don't hang around a lot of people who dislike the prequels (in the sense of dismissing them/not being fannish about them) because, well, that's the heart of my interest in Star Wars, so our areas of interest basically don't really overlap that much, so I don't have a chance to talk to a lot of people and find out their reasons or even how they dislike the prequels, in the bigger trends of fandom. I do think there's an element of what you're talking about, that sometimes people can't just dislike things because it's not their genre of choice, that's absolutely a part of it. Mostly because that's how a lot of people react to anything they don't like (and it's something I and literally everyone else has to work on), there has to be a reason for it that it's objectively bad and, like, I have experienced a lot of people getting mad because I like something in a different way than they do. And I don't mean just in Star Wars fandom, but in almost any given fandom--if someone likes something in a way someone else doesn't, if they talk loudly about it (even within their own space), then there's always a contingent of people who have to find a reason why that person is objectively wrong (or even try to make them morally wrong), rather than just shrugging and going, "We see things differently, my view on things doesn't overwrite theirs and their view on things doesn't overwrite mine." It gets more complicated in instances where fandom attitudes genuinely can be hurtful, especially when they're overlapping into the way real people are treated, likes/dislikes don't 100% exist in a bubble, especially when it comes to queer fans, fans of color, disabled fans, mentally ill fans, etc. But that there are a lot of instances where fandom culture has always been--and is increasingly so--contentious and it's hard to chill out when someone is always screaming at you, when the atmosphere of the fandom is always so intense. Further, there's also an element of how fandom has always been--and also is increasingly so--about personal resonance, personal emotional investment, interpretation, and meaning. That sometimes we identify with something so deeply that we feel attacked when someone else likes or dislikes something we feel so strongly about, something that we feel is a reflection of ourselves, and I see a lot of that as well. And this, too, often crosses over into lines of how the context of how we treat characters can be reflections of how we treat real world people, but that there's no monolith here as well. For example: I make fun of Anakin, this angers some people, because how dare I not take this fictional victim 100% seriously, despite that I have repeatedly said that Anakin is the character I most identify with, that things I make fun of him for are ones that I resonate with personally. I'm not disrespecting mentally ill people, especially considering that Anakin is not bound to a single interpretation on this front--he is not canonically mentally ill, no matter how easy it is for us in fandom to map much of that onto his character or, in my case, feel that so much of what I see in him are things I struggle with myself. By and large, the majority of the people I see (at least on tumblr) who make fun of Anakin are doing so within the same vein, that they're being silly about him on things that they personally relate to. (My experiences on this are not universal, I cannot speak for the whole of even any one part of fandom, only my own sphere of experience, but this is what I've seen.) As always, it's fine if someone doesn't vibe with my style or they find that it's not their thing because they do take him more seriously, but that preference does not make my jokes

suddenly not have the context that I relate a lot to what I see in Anakin. In contrast, the way some of the fandom treats Mace or Finn isn't just personal all the time. Not liking their characters isn't inherently racist, but the way they're consistently, consistently treated sure as hell speaks to a larger pattern of racism in fandom and doesn't come without that context. It's the same with Rey--is there a huge vein of misogyny when it comes to her character? Abso-fucking-lutely there is. Things Luke and Anakin get a pass on, Rey is raked over the coals for. Is everyone who dislikes Rey a misogynist? Not even close. Some don't like her because Finn was used as a prop for her story. Some people don't like her because she got sucked into Kylo Ren's story too much. Some just don't care for the way she was written for other reasons. Some just don't vibe with her. It's fine. Nothing is a monolith. And to circle this back around to what you're talking about--it's hard to judge, both because no part of fandom is a monolith in their reactions, but also because we're only hearing from a selection of the fans. How do you know how many people who aren't fans of the prequels, who just don't care for them because it's not their genre, but just go about their day? You don't hear from a lot of them because they moved on to things they do like, so it seems like they must not exist--except, they do, and they're just out there doing things they like more. We only hear from the people who feel the need to tell others they dislike the prequels for this reason or that reason, some valid, some less valid, etc. Ultimately, I do think there's probably a fair amount of genre dissonance for why people dislike the prequels and channel that into "they're objectively bad" and get defensive when people like them and say they were great, but only because that's true of anything anywhere. But that it's only one small slice of the bigger picture (and there's a lot of stuff that I had to eschew in the writing of this response as well because it can be a pretty sprawling topic), where there are tons of reasons and reactions that people have, as well as they're perfectly free to dislike the prequels for whatever reason they do or don't have, it doesn't really affect my opinions, unless they're trying to shove it in my face or are being a dick to those who disagree with them.

#lumi.txt #idk how to tag this

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apriki · 4 years

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RISE OF SKYWALKER

IT HAS BEEN SEEN MY FRIENDS... LET’S GO

IT WAS A LOVE STORY ALL ALONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU. GUYS. I AM SO... ALIVE RIGHT NOW I

okay that opening scrawl i laughed so hard... THE DEAD SPEAK!!

‘supreme leader kylo ren’ will never not be funny

OKAY OPENING WITH KYLO I SCREAMED.... HIS BEAUTIFUL FACE

I LOVE HIM SO MUCH I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO EXPLAIN TO YOU.... HOW MUCH

okay and his ruthless hell bent search for this silly macguffin.... we love a demonic legend

and ALSO his determination to kill the past!!!!!! HE HAS LITERALLY BEEN CIRCLING THIS THE WHOLE SERIES

look, i am biased because kylo is my favourite and he has been the one thing that’s been consistently written and done across this trilogy and i’m very spoiled because i got everything i wanted here

but KYLO REN. KYLO REN!!!!!!!!!!!

laughed my ASS off at the snoke in the tube and palpatine being like ‘surprise bitch.... bet you thought you’d seen the last of me’

laughed decidedly LESS at ‘i’ve been every voice you’ve ever heard in your head’

look this isn’t going to be a review.... just my thoughts really and this decidedly isn’t a comparison with the last jedi which it seems like everyone wants to do in a weird victorious kind of way

but kylo killing snoke/his abuser in tlj was a terrifying powerful moment to watch and i loved it fiercely and still do, and for kylo to see that he hadn’t done that at all.... and that evil still abides.... fucking nightmare, honestly

and that’s when i started getting a feeling in the back of my head because look he is so determined to kill the past

(let the past die)

that he will kill himself as well to do it. that has always been kylo’s character since the very beginning. SO!!!!!

also the structural integrity of palp’s hideaway.... not great

palps: kill rey heh heh

kylo: i am absolutely not gonna do that but okay

omfg when kylo was like ME AND MY KNIGHTS OF REN ARE GOING HUNTING

i cannot explain to you how HILARIOUS the knights of ren are to me

they do nothing! they say nothing! they just stand around and look stupid in their stupid helmets..... i laughed every single time they were on screen

it’s like kylo’s uselessness manifests into what 6? 7 more useless things. the Knights of Ren

‘we’re going hunting’ are you TWELVE YEARS OLD

this film felt like it was going a million miles an hour, all the time, and that started for me in that first scene in the falcon which was going all over the place? for some reason?

anyway THERE’S A MOLE IN THE FIRST ORDER and i know it is hux but i kind of wanted it to be kylo on the side.... though i know he is not capable of any such subterfuge. about as subtle as a wrecking ball... and my SON

loved the comraderie with poe and finn. i liked the lived-in feeling of the relationships between the rebellion characters this time around

felt like they had that new alien dude in the falcon for no reason and for two seconds like... why

(to sell toys, of course. the same reason why they have a new tiny droid)

but that of course is just the first in a long line of new and underdeveloped characters in this movie. but you know what? i can accept this because the core emotional story was strong and also, it’s star wars? a big sprawling mess is what it has always, always been. ANYWHOMST

REY IN THE FOREST LEVITATING!!!!

the white outfit!!! how at one she is with nature??? SORRY IT WAS BEAUTIFUL

and okay the specific framing of rey and rey’s power in this movie as not only a part of the force but so specifically as a woman using the force... like the power of empathy! the power of healing!!! IT WAS BEAUTIFUL WHATEVER

when she called leia her MASTER? MY HEART

THE POWER OF WOMEN!!!

on the flip side, doesn’t it kind of feel like poe has a problem with women?

like as soon as he started riffing with rey i was like GET A JOB STAY AWAY FROM HER

but in hindsight i feel kind of better about them and their interactions... more on that later

FINN! finn in this movie was WONDERFUL

(except it annoyed me how they had the whole ‘there’s something i want to say to you’ and never had him say it... like even if he was going to say he loved rey okay just don’t leave it hanging like that?)

FORCE FUCKING SENSITIVE!!!!!!

look i really think they did they best they could with a really difficult job in incorporating leia and previous footage into this movie. it wouldn’t have felt right without her and the scenes were a bit clunky but again, a very very difficult thing to do

LEIA AND REY’S RELATIONSHIP..... MY HEART HURTS

i love that rey’s storyline has depth and motivation and kylo’s storyline is literally revolving around rey like she’s the sun

like i literally love this. MORE OF THIS!!!

FORCE BOND STILL EXISTSSSSSSSS

KNEW IT CALLED IT CLAIMED IT LOVE IT

the soft gasp rey does whenever kylo is about to show up for forceskype i love this song

the knights of ren standing around while kylo’s helmet got fixed omfg they are the stupidesttttt

kylo: maybe i don’t want to wear the helmet

the knights of ren: maybe shut the fuck up

Let’s Go To Burning Man

i actually kind of liked seeing these people doing their own cool cultural thing. like again this movie went at lightspeed but i did enjoy that. what’s better than this? just aliens being dudes

when rey talked to that little girl and she asked her last name i was like LOLLLL HERE WE GOOOOOOOO

as soon as lando showed up it was like ‘oh it’s lando’

‘i offered you my hand’

‘I’LL OFFER YOU MY HAND AGAIN’

WHY DID HE SAY THIS... LIKE IT WAS A PROPOSAL

I WAS SCREECHING SORRY... WOW.

i have never really found C3PO funny but um he was going off in this movie... when they all looked at him and then he looked away I CACKLED

and the mind wipe like whew man... one day we’re gonna have a conversation about Droids And The Uncomfortable Conclusions About Droids in these movies

but also, i wish they’d had the guts to stick with it and not restore his memory because, what a symbol for the past dying and the end of a saga? like 3PO has been there since the start!! the star wars live in his memory banks ???? and R2 as well i suppose

don’t think too long about this cause then you realise that for some reason they’re still using like 80 year old iphones and R2 and 3PO should be decommissioned for scraps

WHEN HE TOOK THE NECKLACE OFF HER I FOUND IT HOT I FOUND IT SEXY I FOUND IT UMMMM

the sand was a cool visual thing but then THE SNAKE

it felt so GREEK HERO MYTH but then rey stops the script!!

AND DOESN’T FIGHT IT

AND SHE HEALS IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

as soon as rey healed that snake i was like

‘kylo ren is that snake’

blah blah dagger blah

the sith language and being forbidden actually interests me. i want more proper sith lore

basically i want a revan and bastila movie. make it so

keri russell was WASTED in this movie

but that one scene with her and rey where they had Mutual Respect was so much better and more important than anything she did with poe

poe is like... sure i guess. i mean i liked him better in this movie than tlj and i liked him more as the movie when on but hmmst

but hey if i get to have a kylo then the poe people can have i poe. i begrudge no one

except, uh.... hux people. y’all really got done this movie huh. ouch

double as bad cause there was literally no point to the new general character. should have just been hux and then had him die in the final battle?

but i laughed when he was like ‘i don’t want you to WIN. i want kylo to LOSE’

THAT’S KING PETTY

omfg when kylo was like ‘where are you’ and then saw the vader mask and was like ‘oh you’re in my room’

SCREECHED

KYLO’S EVIL BOARD MEETING

LAUGHED MY ASS OFF

WHEN HE SMACKED THAT DUDE TO THE ROOF

sorry the first order is a startup. not even an ‘evil’ one especially because they’re all just a bit evil

when kylo reacted to that guy saying ‘we should take more children’ and the small thread winding through this movie about children being indoctrinated and rey and ben stopping THAT cycle.. important to me and i wish it had been bigger but i was glad it was there

all kylo did in the first half of this movie was chase after his girlfriend and tell her how they were meant to be together and that he wasn’t going to kill her even though he should. i love one stupid man

kylo flying his ship at rey deliberately wanting to ‘push her’ and her jumping over it and crashing the whole damn thing

and then him just getting up and walking out of the wreck not a scratch on him

like some kind of hero in a romance novel in his stupid cape lmfaoaoooo... you love to see it

THE PUSH/PULL WITH THE TRANSPORT?

THEIR POWERRRRRR

and then rey with her fuckin LIGHTNING

as soon as that happened i was like, oh lol rey palps then....

but also, THE LOOK OF WONDER BUT ALSO VICTORY ON KYLO’S FACE

ADAM DRIVER SIR

okay to be honest the whole soujourn to the like space swiss village is kind of a blur to me

keri russell was wasted, did i say that already?

although okay that bit when poe was like ‘were you a stormtrooper? were you a scavenger?’ maybe give him his rights

when kylo said WE’RE TWO PARTS OF THE SAME BEING

A DYAD

TWO WHO ARE AS ONE

two? WHO ARE? AS ONEEEEEE

NEITHER WHOLE WITHOUT THE MOTHERFUCKING OTHER I

‘i never lied to you’ AND HE NEVER HAS AND NEVER FUCKING DIDDD!!!!!

all the stormtroopers getting knocked back and kylo steadying himself with the force lol... it’s these little things ok

JODIE COMER?

rEy PaLpAtInE

I LAUGHED MY ASSSS OFFFFFFF

like... sure jj. sure

look, i have always understood and respected the choice to make rey ‘nobody’ (like anakin was! the force just makes who it needs to create the balance!) but if rey was going to be anyone i guess.... this is the best choice?

and i think there IS merit in the story going from ‘person burdened with legacy vs person with no legacy’ to ‘person with a legacy of good turning evil and person with a legacy of evil turning good’

i gotta think longer and more about this but. besides its inherent silliness i do not hate this ‘twist’

this movie jumped from planet to planet like a ping pong ball! it felt a bit jarring but my mum pointed out that the galaxy IS big and they’ve never really done this before and i was like hmmm Points Were Made

THE FIGHT ON THE OLD DEATH STAR

KYLO DODGING REY’S SWIPES AND NOT EVEN PULLING HIS SABER UNTIL HE HAD TO

THEN ONLY FIGHTING DEFENSIVELY

and her DESPERATION

ALMOST LIKE SHE’S FIGHTING HERSELF

BECAUSE THEY ARE TWO HALVES! OF ONE WHOLE!

and then oh my god

‘you can’t go back to her (leia). just like i can’t’

and the VICTORY in his eyes and the acknowledgment of the truth in hers

because THEY ARE THE SSSAAAAAAMMMMMMMMEEEE

when rey SCREECHED and force threw finn back.... oh fuck

(sidebar the way finn was so determinedly THERE for rey this whole movie... even when she said about the sith throne... his faith in her didn’t waver im verklempt)

WHEN HE DISAPPEARED AND REY LOOKED BACK HORRIFIED

because he can’t go! because the fight is what they have and what she’s clinging on to!

AND THEN HE WALKED UP OUT THE WATTTTEERRRRRRRRR

absolute romantic nonsense.

AND THEN

SHE KILLED HIM

SHE KILLED HIM!!!!!!

SHE KILLED KYLO REN WITH HIS OWN DAMN CRUCIFIX SWORD

I COULD NOT

BE LEEEEAAAF

THIS HAS BEEN MY DREAM ENDGAME SINCE THE START AND IT’S HERE TWO THIRDS THROUGH THE FUCKING LAST MOVIE?

A GIFT. LICH RALLY A GIFT TO MEEEEE

leia gave her LIFE for her SON I...

this was the only moment in the movie where i started to get some tears cause like... IT WAS JUST SO MUCH

AND REY.... TOOK LEIA’S ENERGY THROUGH THE FORCE...

AND SHE PUT HER HANDS ON HIM

AND SHE HEALED HIM

SHE’S A SCAVENGER

SHE FIXES BROKEN THINGGGGSSSSS

HE DIED BECAUSE SHE KILLED HIM

AND HE LIVES BECAUSE SHE HEALED HIM...

WHEN. WILL. YOUR. FAVES?????????

‘I WANTED TO TAKE YOUR HAND. BEN’S HAND’

take my hand? take my whole life too

IIRENGOWENRGKLJEWNGFKJBKJBKJBKJLB

ALL THE BEAUTIFUL WINDSWEPT CLOSE UP SHOTS OF KYLO’S BEAUTIFUL WINDSWEPT FACE IN THIS MOVIE. I WAS BREATHLESS

KYLO STNADING ON THE EDGE OF THAT SEA WITH THE WIND GOING AND HIS LEG OUT LIKE THE STUPID BYRONIC HERO HE IS

HEATHCLIFF? HEATHCLIFF ON THE MOOR?

HAN’S HAND ON BEN’S FACE

HE CALLED HIM. DAD

‘kylo ren is dead’

OHHHHHH BABBBBYYYYYY

look i loved the crossguard saber but i understood why it had to go

and like ben shedding the persona he had built as a defence mechanism... rey killed that part of him? powerful too powerful

i know i have rose coloured glasses because i care about the core story of kylo/rey enough and i’m passionate enough about it but okay the way they are entwined with one another on the journey to identity is the greatest thing a silly blockbuster series has maybe ever given me

it’s tam lin. IT’S FAIRY TALE NONSENSE AND I LOVE IT

i 100% know in my bones they wanted the scene with han to be leia but they obviously couldnt have that so that was fine. when ben turned his head around and heard her and felt her.... DONT LOOK AT ME

the most emotional moment in this movie was when chewie heard about leia and broke down and collapsed and screamed

us too buddy. damn

rey stealing kylo’s ship and yeeting away lmfao

and when she went back to ach-to and burned it and was like IM STAYING HERE 4EVA >:(

she’s literally the exact same stupid reckless as kylo and i love

rose was wasted in this movie. very annoying

i DID laugh when they said ‘we should pull a holdo manoeuvre’ like of course that’s the one thing jj took from tlj. ohhhh jj

loved finn meeting the ex stormtrooper lady. i always felt like the one weakness of tlj is that it dropped this thread of finn’s indoctrination that i thought was being woven alongside rey and kylo’s issues with their childhoods in force awakens. the look of wonder on his face when she said that the whole battalion defected.... and saying the force lead them to do it like it lead him... and you could see john boyega feeling that with his whole heart!!!

i laughed at palps’ fleet of star destroyers that like all have death star capabilities now? so dumb

and also, a star destroyer is basically an aircraft carrier.... do you think the people who make star wars realise the empire is america? no...??? alright imma head out

missed opportunity for a shot of jar jar or a gungan when the galaxy fleet showed up like those towboats at dunkirk. to be HONEST

where did sheev palps find that stadium of goons? are they on retainer?

yeah so palpatine’s lair is the underworld and rey is eurydice and ben is orpheus. YEAH. YEAHHHHHHHHH

LEIA WAS TRAINED AS A MFING JEDI

THAT FLASHBACK WAS EVERYTHING FUCK

LEIA’S SABER!!!!!!!!!

i have Questions about leia ‘seeing her son dying at the end of her journey’ like ?

BUT HER PUTTING AWAY THE SABER TO PROTECT BEN!!!!

THIS FAMILY

fuck. benjy solo in that jumper.... USING A BLASTER LIKE HIS DAD.....

THE X WING AND THE TIE FIGHTER PARKED NEXT TO EACH OTHER!!!!!!!!!

PALPATINE CALLING THEIR BOND ‘AS POWERFUL AS LIFE AND THE FORCE ITSELF’

NOT FOR GENERATIONS HAS THEIR BEEN A DYAD LIKE THEM!!!

FUCKING

DESTINED

BITCH

THEY ARE EACH OTHER’S DESTINY? WOW SORRY.... WOWOWOOWOOWOWOOWOWOW

ben versus his idiot knights of ren.... yeah i love my son

sorry rey had a vision of her AND kylo sitting on the throne but the throne is.... one seat? what are the logistics here? her on his lap? him on her lap? both of them sitting on an armrest like awkward kids taking a photo with santa?

I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS FOR LIKE FIVE MINUTES COMPLETELY DISTRACTED

THE LITTLE SHRUG BEN DID WHEN HE GOT THE LIGHTSABER AND WAS LIKE ‘YEAH SORRY NOW YOU’RE GONNA DIE’

I SCREAMED. IM LOVE HIM

rey giving ben the saber through the force bond!!

ACROSS SPACE??? LOVE THAT TRANSCENDS THE WORLD

palpatine taking, SPECIFICALLY, the power of rey and kylo’s BOND to strengthen himself because it is THE STRONGEST THING IN THE FUCKING UNIVERSE???????? CANONICALLY????????

REY AND BEN FIGHTING WITH LUKE AND LEIA’S SABERS

FUCKING... I FUCKING....

when palps like flicked ben away sorry i laughed... i mean i was like REALLY? FOR THE BIG FINALE HE’S GONE? but i understood why and that rey is the hero etc etc

THE JEDI SPEAKING TO REY! OBI WAN! QUI GON FUCKIN JINN

yoda is there too

AND THE POWER OF THE JEDI FLOWING THROUGH HER!!!!!

god her power.... SHE AMAZES MEEEE

(initially i thought ben was gonna kill palps for rey because of the whole The Sith Live in My Killer thing and then she’d have to kill him but HOISTED ON HIS OWN PETARDDD)

palpatine:

and the power was too much and it killed her ooooof

(the power of being a legacy... of channeling all that has some before!!! these movies get so ridiculously meta sometimes. best believe we’ll talk about THIS)

BUT HERE COMES BEN

BENJY BOYYYYY

his hair JUST long enough to be scraggly and devastating

literally dragging a broken leg

ADAM DRIVERS PHYSICALITY IN THESE MOVIES (WELL ALWAYS) (BUT SPECIFICALLY IN THIS ROLE)

and he knows

WHAT HE HAS TO DOOOO

HE FINALLY FOUND SOMETHING HE LOVED ENOUGH TO DIE FOR

I JUST CAN’T BELIEVE THIS

when he held her body holy shit... HOLY SHIT, GUYS

FULL CIRCLE????CVMSDFJNVDSLKFJVLDKJFVLKJDBFV

A PIETA.... A FUCKING PIETA

OH MY GOD THIS MOVIE

and his heartbroken face.... stumbling back to her... oh my good goddd

and then

‘I KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO DO BUT I’M AFRAID TO DO IT’

HE DIED FOR HER

HE GAVE.... HIS LIFE..... FOR HER.....

I CANNOT BE LIEVE THISSSSSS

HE GAVE UP HIS LIFE!!!!! HIS FUCKING LIFE!!!

he fought.... his whole life.... and he gave it up....

THAT’S LOVE? THAT’S FUCKING TRUE LOVE HOLLYL SKDJBVDKBF

REVAN AND BASTILA!!!!! REVAN AND BASTILA!!!1

and then she was alive again!!! ROMEO AND JULIET OKAY WOW

AND

THEY

KISSED

I’M SORRY I DID FREAK THE FUCK OUT

HIS SOFT EYES

(super spoilery shot coming up here but)

OH MY GOD

FOR FUCK’S

SAKE.

i’m sure people will be mad about how little kylo like... talked in this movie but like sorry this was perfect

she saved his life! and she saved the world! and he quietly gave his life to her, for her?

this humble act of love? PURE LOVE?

WHAT WONDERFUL AND TERRIBLE THINGS THEY ARE CAPABLE OF.

THAT THEY PUSH EACH OTHER TO

THIS TRILOGY WAS MADE FOR ME AND ONLY ME. THERE’S NO OTHER EXPLANATION

and her look of JOY and she said, ‘BEN’

look. i have been on the record for YEARS as saying my dream endgame would be for rey to kill kylo and for him to be forceghost with her always

AND SOMEHOW UMMMM THIS IS BETTER?

1. SHE DID! KILL HIM! AND THEN BROUGHT HIM BACK

2. AND THEN HE WILLINGLY DIED FOR HER?

3. AND NOW SHE CARRIES HIM WITH HER ALWAYS??????

when his body faded and leia’s did too..... wo OOOOOOOOOOWWWW

SHE TOOK

HIS FUGGIN

LAST NAMMMEMELRKNWELKJBNLKJBFLKJBFKLRBJKLERJB

I’M SORRY THIS MOVIE WAS MADE FOR ME. KYLO REN WAS BREWED UP F O R MEEEEEEE

listen. there is a video game where a lady’s boyfriend gets killed and his soul goes into a sword and she carries the sword around with her

THAT IS THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

I CARRY YOUR HEART I CARRY IT IN MY HEART BITCH??????

THE FUCKING ORANGE SABER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and look. ben’s story is allowed to be just about rey and rey’s is allowed to be bigger than just him. that’s EQUALITY. that’s JUSTICE

look i know it’s very douchey of me but i wrote this paragraph about a character of mine in a book i wrote and it is like..... LIKE IT’S JUST KYLO REN OKAY

he was never gonna be someone who could settle down and live like a quiet life of monkhood or whatever luke was doin on ach-to....

okay when finn poe and rey hugged at the end okay I DID FEEL SOMETHING IN MY COLD DEAD HEART

FINN JUST LOVES THEM! SO MUCH! THERE IS SO MUCH LOVE IN THAT BOY’S HEART

and probably up until that moment i hadn’t really cared about having a Trio in the new movies like we had han and leia and luke but that hug had me feeling like... okay... Friendship IS Great

okay back to kylo, i tweeted this but i’ll repeat here: my favourite arc in media has always been snape’s, to me it is the perfect ‘redemption’ arc (and yes this will make people scrunchy-nosed angry, so i will point out: redemption to me has always meant redemption in the eyes of the reader/viewer, not in-world, this is true for anakin/vader too, who also has a nearly flawless ‘redemption’ arc) but now it’s kylo solo ren ben

I LOVE HIM. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH I CAN’T STAND IT A LITTLE

HE FELL IN LOVE? AND IT SAVED HIM

HE WAS LOST AND HE FOUND HIS OTHER HALF

AND HE DIED BECAUSE SHE WAS STRONG ENOUGH TO CARRY IT ALL

CARRY THE LEGACY WHEN HE COULDN’T!!!

IT’S JUST SOSSOOSOOSOSOOSSO

i want a funko pop of ben in his comfy jumper running to fuck sheev palps the fuck up

i don’t even LIKE funko pops

naboo has a lot to answer for. literally all of these problems come from naboo

sure this movie was a big ole mess and i surely can’t wait for the good old disk horse

but i’m riding this high for as long as i can

because it was always about LOVE! LOVE CAN IGNITE THE STARS

so sure, this movie pandered terribly. but i am one of the people it pandered to and i am HAPPY INDEED

remember when maz kanata was like ‘your parents aren’t coming back but there is someone who still could’ YEAH IT WAS BEN!!!!!

#star wars #star wars spoilers #rise of skywalker spoilers #SPOILERS

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cupcake-michaela · 4 years

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At a Crossroads- Chapter 2

It was in this moment Belle was glad that she hadn't gotten the chance to speak. No one had acknowledged the fact that she had walked into the building, so no one saw her reaction to seeing him for the first time in 3 years. She was frozen where she stood, not wanting to draw attention to herself, but also not wanting to be in the same room as the man who broke her heart.

"What's going on?" Poe asked, scanning the room freezing when he saw her.

No one answered. Ben was glaring at Poe, completely forgetting about the argument he was just in with the shop girl. Finn and the girl, both looking confused at the sudden tension radiating off of both Leia and Ben. "It's fine Poe. This asshole was just leaving." The girl said, glaring at Ben.

Poe glanced at Ben, his eyes widening for just a moment before turning his attention back to Belle. Ben followed his gaze and saw his sister, looking like she was on the verge of breaking down. Poe took a step forward, almost as if he were moving towards her, and Ben snapped. Moving towards Poe, he shoved him back before punching him in the jaw. The entire room erupted.

"STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM HER!" Ben yelled at Poe who was lying on the floor, surprised from the punch.

"WHO ARE YOU?" The girl screamed.

"WHAT THE FUCK REN?" Came from Finn.

Leia glanced back at her daughter for the first time, and realized what was happening. She moved toward Ben, who had grabbed Poe by the scruff of his neck ready to hit him again. She put her hand on his arm. "That's enough, let him go."

Ben didn't move, and Poe stared back at him unflinchingly.

"Stop." Belle said quietly, drawing attention to herself for the first time. She moved to her brothers side, pulling him away from Poe. "That's enough Kylo."

Ben glanced down at his sister and saw the fierceness coming back into her eyes. He nodded and took a step back, letting go of Poe. He watched as his sister glanced at Poe before turning her attention to him. She fussed over him for a moment before pushing him towards the door. "You go, I'll handle this. It would look bad for business if he sues you for assault." she said quietly.

She was trying not to be heard, but the girl Ben had been talking to chimed in. "You bet your ass he'll be pressing charges."

Belle sighed as Ben took the bait. "Back off Scavenger, it's not your business."

"Get the hell out!" She yelled at him, pointing at the door.

"Yeah, well at least I know I don't work with traitors." Ben told her. "It's interesting that you've surrounded yourself with men, must say something about you."

The girl, red faced after Ben basically called her a whore, turned towards Belle after he walked out the door. She was getting ready to kick Belle out, but stopped when she walked towards Leia. "Hi mom." Belle said, kissing the woman cheek.

"Mom?" Finn and the girl asked at the same time.

"Finn, Rey, meet my daughter Belle." Leia said gesturing.

"I actually already know Finn." Belle said, looking towards Rey. "It's nice to meet you though."

"Wish I could say the same." Rey said, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about him. I'm still trying to teach him his manners." Belle said dryly. "Let me give you a bit of advice though. Never let a man talk to you the way my brother just did. If you let one do it, they'll all do it. Doesn't matter if they play the good guy or not." Belle glanced at Poe, who was rolling his eyes. "And by then they'll have your mother so in love with them that she still invites him over for dinners."

"Oh now." Leia said, rolling her eyes at Belle. "This has nothing to do with that."

"Let's not air our dirty laundry for everyone to see." Poe muttered.

Belle glared at Poe, missing the look that Rey and Finn shared. They knew that there was a girl in Poe's past, one that had really done a number on him, but she was not what they had imagined. The only girls they had ever seen him with, and let's be honest the mans a hoe so there were a lot, were all blonde. They were super model tall, slim, and typically had an accent. The total opposite of this girl. Where the others were light, she was dark. Belle had long dark curls that ended at her waist, helping emphasize that while her waist was slim, the rest of her was not (in all the right places Finn might add, while Rey would punch him). She was also much shorter than most people, which is why everyone is always surprised that she and Ben are twins (the fucking tree).

Belle rolled her eyes turning back to Rey. "I really am sorry for all of this. We just wanted to clear some things up with you. We had a deal with Maz where we shared internet with her, but I can promise that B..Kylo's not going to want to do that with you."

"Yeah," Rey said, rolling her eyes. "What the fuck is his problem?"

"Finn." Belle answered, pointing at the man in question.

"But he punched Poe?!"

"His issue with Poe is a separate issue." Leia chimed in from where she was sitting. "One that's not involved with this conversation."

Rey nodded, wanting to know everything, but not wanting to push back against Leia. After all if it wasn't for Leia she wouldn't have the building. "So what's his problem with Finn?"

"It's not important." Finn told her, "We'll get our own services Belle."

"Okay." She said, turning to look at Poe. "Are you going to...?"

"No." He said, ignoring Rey's annoyed yell.

"Thanks."

Leia watched the exchange happen. Two of her favorite people who were once so in love you couldn't see one without the other now couldn't even carry on a full conversation. She'd never been given a full reason as to what had happened, she just knew that if she invites Poe to the house, Belle declines the invitation. She once invited them both and didn't tell them, that had not gone over well. She's still finding pieces of her favorite vase, that Belle had thrown at Poe, in her kitchen. "Sweetheart."

"Yeah mom?"

"Are you coming to dinner tonight?"

"I can't." Belle said, thinking that all she wanted to do tonight is drown herself in wine, and pretend the world doesn't exist. "I have plans with a friend."

"Well, we'll miss you." Leia said sighing, "Your father wants to see you soon."

"I know mama." Belle said, kissing her mother on the forehead, "I really do have to get to work though."

Finn looked like he wanted to say something, but shook his head when Rey looked at him questioningly. Rey watched as Belle hugged her mom before turning towards her and Finn, completely ignoring Poe.

"I really am sorry about my brother."

"I'm not going to say it's fine, because it's not, but let's move forward from here." Rey said, extending her hand towards Rey. "As long as you're the only one I have to deal with."

"Fair enough." Belle said, taking Rey's hand and shaking firmly before moving to the door.

"Belle." Finn finally said, "Does she still work there?"

Belle tilted her head to the side, looking at Finn. She could see the worry in his face, but she couldn't tell exactly what he was worried about. "Yeah."

Finn nodded and Belle walked out the door.

Belle didn't even hear the door close before a hand grabbed her arm. She swung around and came face to face with the one person she really didn't want to see. Poe looked down at her, annoyance clear on his face. She wanted to jerk her arm away from him, and she wanted to slap him, but she couldn't bring herself to do either. She could see a bruise starting on his face where Ben hit him and had to fight the urge to run her fingers over it. It would be far to easy to let her hands wander from that point. She had to remind herself why she left in the first place.

"Are you really going to avoid me?" He asked her, the annoyance bleeding into his voice as well. "For fucks sake Belle, I'm going to be working next door to you. You're not going to be able to keep avoiding me."

"How's Zorii?" She asked, with a tilt of the head and a tone in her voice.

Poe let go of her arm as if she had burned him. He glared at her as the door to First Order opened and Hux stepped out. Hux could literally feel the tension radiating off of them. This was the type of situation he loves to avoid, and could be avoiding this one right now if it wasn't for Ren's temper. He was currently throwing things inside. Hux figured if the shop were to open at all today then he'd better get Belle to calm him down before he literally tore the walls down.

"Is everything all right?"

"It's fine Hux." Belle said, still staring at the dark haired man in front of her. "Poe was just going back inside."

"We need to talk Belle." Poe told her, refusing to back down.

"No, we really don't." She told him, shaking her head. "It's over and done with, let's just move on. You work in the building next to mine, that's all this is and all it's going to be. We don't have to talk. We can just pretend we don't know each other."

"That's not going to work for me." Poe said, right as the window shattered.

Belle spun around to see the entire store front window of First Order laying all over the sidewalk. She could hear Jannah and Gwen yelling at Ben, while Hux was just staring at the shards of glass like he was exhausted with life. Belle sighed, hearing her brother continue his temper tantrum. "Kylo you literally punched through a window you need to go to the hospital!"

"Today's never going to end is it?" Belle muttered to herself. She glanced back at Poe, who was staring at the glass laying all over the ground with an amused look on his face. "What?"

Poe put his hands up in surrender, seeing the annoyance cloud her face. "He just hasn't changed has he?"

"Shut up." she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "You're the one that has him pissed off in the first place."

He rolled his eyes and took a step towards her, his expression returning to seriousness. "We do need to talk Belle."

"Fine." She sighed. "I'll be back here tonight at 10 to clean up this mess. If you're not here, then this conversation will never happen. Understand?"

"Understood."

~~~

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Belle asked, smacking Ben in the back of the head. "Do you have any idea how much your temper tantrum is going to cost us?"

Ben rolled his eyes, leaning back on the ER bed. He knew as soon as he'd done it that he was going to get a lecture, but it's not like he meant to break the window. He honestly didn't even know it was possible he'd only seen it on movies. Belle was pacing in front of him, anxious as usual. The truth was, his temper tantrum wasn't just because of Poe, that stupid girl had already riled him up and then Dameron showed up. Ben never had any real control over his temper, not by himself anyway. That's why he and Belle were so close, she grounded him, and he made sure people didn't walk all over her. And when they fought, well let's just say people are lucky it doesn't happen very often.

"It's fine Belle." He said, waving his non-injured hand. "We have the money. I just feel bad for the guys having to clean up my mess."

"They'll get over it." She said, chewing on her thumb nail.

Ben watched her for a moment. He could see the anxiety shining underneath the anger, something was up. They had been in the Emergency Room for 4 hours already and they were still waiting for the doctor to come in and pull the glass from his hand. So that was 4 hours of listening to Belle yell at him and watching her pace around the room. "Okay, you need to sit the fuck down before I lose my mind."

"What?"

"Belle, you've been pacing around this room since we got here." He told her, exasperation clear in his voice. "What's up, because I know that this," He said, gesturing toward her, "isn't because I'm hurt."

Belle was silent. He was right, she wasn't anxious because Ben was hurt, he hurts himself all the time. It's because she agreed to meet Poe later. It would be the first time in 3 years that they'd be alone together. She knew she wasn't ready for it, knew that she'd either say or do something that she was going to regret, but she also knew that she wasn't ready to tell Ben that she'd agreed to meet with Poe.

"It's nothing." Belle said, sitting down to appease her brother. "I still can't believe you punched through that window. Either you're a lot stronger than I thought, or that's just a shitty window."

Ben knew she was lying to him, and he knew that she was changing the subject. What he didn't know is why his sister, his other half and absolute favorite human was lying to him all of a sudden. He tilted his head, trying to ignore the anger that was building, and made eye contact with her. She knew that he knew she was lying.

"Is this about Dameron?" He asked, ignoring her comment about the window. I mean after all it was a shitty window, because there's no way.

Belle looked at the floor. "It really doesn't matter Ben."

"Because if it's about Dameron, you know I'll make sure that he stays away from you. You know that."

"Ben, just give it a rest." Belle snapped, causing Ben jerk his head up, taking in the annoyed expression on her face. "I'm just not ready to talk about it yet."

"Okay." He told her after a few moments of silence. "Whenever you're ready."

~~~

Belle parked her car in front of First Order Tattooing at 9:45pm. She glanced at the store beside theirs, and saw that all of the lights were off. She tried to calm her nerves as she got out of her car and locked it. She shook her head as she walked towards the front door after noticing the boards that Hux and Gwen had put across the window. She rolled her eyes, knowing that they had all had to cancel their appointments until they can get the window properly fixed. And that would be at least 2 days according to the people she had contacted while at the hospital.

Belle jumped, hearing a cough come from behind her. Whirling around she came face to face with Poe. He looked good, but then again he always looks good. He nodded at the door, clearly not wanting to have this conversation on the street. She nodded, turning around to unlock the door before holding it open and letting him walk in first.

"Ben okay?" He asked, after a few moments of watching Belle flip through some papers in the back office.

"Yeah, the doctor told him he was a moron and that he's lucky he didn't break his hand. He won't be doing any tattooing for a couple of days though. " She said, not looking up at him.

Belle was flipping through papers she had gone through that morning. She was hoping he'd say his piece and leave without having to interact too much. That clearly wasn't what Poe wanted, seeing as he put his hand down in the middle of the papers causing her to look up.

"Would you at least look at me?" He asked her, moving his hand off of the papers. When he realized he had her attention he spoke. "I miss you kid."

"Oh please." she said, rolling her eyes.

"Don't do that." He said, running a hand through his hair as he paced. "Don't play this off like we were nothing. We were great together Belle. I would have given you whatever you wanted, but you walked away!"

Belle shot out of her chair. "I gave you a choice! You chose wrong!"

"How the hell was I supposed to know that you were giving me some sort of fucking test?!" he yelled back. "I never knew what the fuck you were thinking. How the hell did I fail a test I didn't even know I was taking. Not to mention that the choices you gave me weren't exactly fucking fair."

"Not fair?!" Belle exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. "I was ready to spend the rest of my life with you! I wanted you to choose me! I didn't give a shit about the rest of it Poe."

"I did choose you!"

"You really don't fucking get it do you?" She asked shaking her head.

"NO!" He yelled, "Why don't you fucking enlighten me?!"

Belle stared at him a moment. She saw the red in his face and that curl that fell over his forehead, the one she wanted to push back. He really didn't get it. He didn't understand that all she had wanted was to be important to him. She wanted to know that if push came to shove that he'd believe her, that he'd choose her first. Not in the 'I have to be top priority above everything else way', because let's be honest that's unrealistic. She sighed, sitting down in the chair behind the desk, the fight leaving her.

"You didn't choose me Poe." She told him, thinking back on what happened.

"What are you talking about?" He asked, kneeling down in front of her, putting his hands on her waist, kind of but not really, pulling her closer. "You were the only thing I wanted."

Belle shook her head, tilting it as she put a hand on his cheek. "You didn't choose me. In the end you chose Zorii."

#Michaela's At a Crossroads #poe dameron #poe dameron smut #poe dameron fic #star wars #star wars fic #How is his hair always perfect?#there is also like a touch (alot) of reylo #Should I tag it reylo?#I'm gonna tag it reylo #reylo

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crqstalite · 4 years

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so that happened.

the rise of skywalker was a thing...

spoilers below the cut >>

honestly? tros wasn’t drop the whole franchise bad like i thought it was. it had some good moments. i liked the main trio in this film. i LOVED the cinematography of the movie, god it was gorgeous. i adored the chemistry between finn and poe. yes, i am very aware of what both actors have said and am disappointed in my own way because goddamn that should’ve graced my theater screen, one little finnpoe kiss was all i asked for. there will be a lot of fixit fics for stormpilot, and i will enjoy them all. and i liked that it wrapped up four years of movies in one little package. it really did feel like the end of an era when the last few seconds scrolled on screen. i’d be lying if i said i didn’t scream internally at the ‘rey. rey skywalker’ at the end. the sequel trilogy wasn’t bad, it was just handled improperly and probably would’ve been better received had it not ended like thi

but i didn’t like how it tried to apologize for what happened in last jedi. i didn’t like kylo ren--sorry ben solo in this movie. hell, i didn’t like him to begin with in any of his other movies. they kept trying to redeem him and honestly?? i don’t think he deserved it if i’m being honest. why, i’m not sure, but he just gives me that hella iffy feeling and he gave me the heebie jeebies the whole time. and i sure as hell don’t know what the hell this simmering romance beneath the surface was between rey and ben. doesn’t mean the ship’s followers or general idea is bad (after scrolling through the finnpoe tag on ao3, i can safely say there will be a few coffee shop aus i’ll end up reading), just that i don’t agree with it. he berates her for years (?), literally telling her she amounts to nothing??? and then they expect us to be like ‘they were in love the whole time, Actually!’ i don’t like that in man but go off.

on the subject of ben solo and rey. what the fuck is this teleportation shit? if someone could explain it to me, that’d be great because it makes no damn sense in context with the movie. yes, i’m aware they share some sort of force bond, but this feels so ‘pulled out of our ass for the sake of the movie’. it’s just something i couldn’t feel all that good about because of it. they fight each other in different areas, they talk to each other in different areas, she teleports a lightsaber to him in a different area entirely. why is this??? it makes no fucking sense and honestly drew me out from that development of those two.

rose?? was sidelined the whole movie?? as much as i like the girl who was with finn at the end of the movie (i didn’t catch her name but damn she was pretty), i think she easily could’ve been replaced with rose, and i probably would’ve felt more for this scene because finn and rose have fought together before. rose was a great character in the last jedi and she could’ve made this movie great. fuck off. rose tico and kelly marie tran deserved so much better. there better be alternate endings for this movie or i will riot.

finn???? even before seeing the tweets that were like ‘hey uh finn was supposed to tell rey about being force sensitive the whole time’ i predicted that he was. ‘i had a feeling’ and all that bullshit, i’m praying sometime he told her. it would’ve opened up some cool scenes of them training together on the falcon or something. other than that, enjoyed his character wholeheartedly because goddamit it’s finn and i have nothing bad to say about him. poe too, i adore poe.

the ending was symbolic?? in a way i didn’t understand. i get it, her master grew up there so then she was symbolically leaving their past behind to reach her future yada yada yada yada. but unless i’m missing something, did rey even know he grew up on tatooine? she went back to get the x-wing and lightsaber from ghost!luke but it felt unfinished and rushed there. her relationship with leia, while touching, simply hadn’t been developed enough on screen for me to really feel in tune with this scene either. understandably with carrie fisher being gone they probably couldn’t have, but it is just a tad frustrating either way.

hux being the traitor? maybe i didn’t pay attention enough in the last few movies but was there really a reason for him to defect? it didn’t feel real enough for me to be honest. then, bam he’s dead i guess mOVING ON. the fuck. i kind of liked him too but nooooooo....kill him for the plot.

PALPATINE. FUCKING PALPATINE.

this one confused me, rey palpatine? the fuck. her dad was his son? the man is over a millenia old, if not more. how in hell did he create a child? how did he escape from palpatine’s grasp? why did palpatine let him go? why the hell does palpatine want a clearly light side influenced jedi to rule as empress? could someone else have killed him and become all the known sith in the galaxy? there are so many questions i have regarding him specifically that i’m probably going to need a guidebook just to not have an aneursym trying to make sense of it all.

REY WITH FORCE LIGHTNING. I GET SHE’S A PALPATINE BUT WHEN THE FUCK DID SHE BECOME SO POWERFUL??

chewie was cool, i love chewie. lando was...interesting. a cool cameo, yes. adored the scenes he was in but i felt he was kind of shoehorned in at the last minute. my opinion, doesn’t have to be yours.

c3po. i liked c3po a lot, and i’m glad he got his memory back but then i felt like that heartfelt line ‘im looking at all my friends for the last time’ was meaningless. in the back of my mind i knew that for old time’s sake they wouldn’t leave him without his memory, but it also took away from the emotional impact of his memory loss.

poe’s spice running past was interestingly touched upon and not mentioned again. nothing ever pointed to it beforehand which is the only reason im mildly confused by it, but zorii’s survival after uh...that planet (kijimi, which i struggled to spell until i looked up the wikipedia) basically blew up felt weird. the little headnod at each other at the end was kind of cute but?? zorii (???) could’ve been handled better i guess.

i struggle not to write a paragraph on why finnpoe should’ve been canon but that can be discussed at a later date. feel like zorii and the other stormtrooper deserter were only there for finn and poe but i digress, and really hope that i was just been paranoid. at least rey didn’t get dragged into it.

han solo didn’t come back as a ghost but as a memory so he could redeem his son. nothing more needs to be said here because thats a sin on it’s own.

honestly?? i would’ve sat in the theater for three hours like i did endgame just for some of these plot points to be explained better. thanks anyways for these great, sometimes underdeveloped characters, disney.

also?? according to my father a ghost-like ship was in the final fight?? i need explanation, now.

ALSO! only now after i finally came back to the game after all these years (i hadn’t played swtor from 2013 until late 2017 i think) and i begin wondering ‘the hell happened in between those 3000 years before the battle of yavin to have us lose the empire and republic and end up with the first order and the rebellion??’. if anyone can answer this, i’d be forever grateful.

#star wars #the rise of skywalker #tros #spoilers #the rise of skywalker spoilers #tros spoilers #star wars spoilers #rise of skywalker #rise of skywalker spoilers

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kyloreyorgana · 4 years

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STAR WARS 9 ! TROS SPOILERS !

In case this is not obvious enough, this post will contain SPOILERS for the last Star Wars movie, which I’m just now coming home from. These are my first thoughts. I have tried to tag as best I could so that people who mute the tags don’t see my post. Do not proceed f you don’t want to read any spoilers.

You have been warned. Long (and I mean LONG) post ahead.

First of all, I’m happy to be back y’all! Just with TLJ, I come from months (or has it been years already ?) of inactivity to jump right back into the fandom, as obsessed as I was back when I came home from TFA. Which is funny because at the time TFA came out, I had lost all interest in Star Wars and heard so many critics from people who’d seen it and said it was horrible and that Disney basically sold the franchise to the devil that I didn’t even want to see it, to keep the good memories closer to my heart. One night, one month after its theatrical release, I thought “aw fuck I might as well see it, at least for Carrie, Mark and Harrisson” so I went to the cheap theater that was near my home... I had zero expectation, and really I think it’s the reason why I loved the movie so much. I didn’t chose to ship Reylo, this ship whacked me like Harley Quinn’s oversized hammer with the Hades and Persephone aesthetics. When I came out, completely mesmerized with what I had just seen, I jumped on Tumblr as soon as I got home, and I ended up creating this blog just days later. I wanted more and more, fics, metas, fanarts, headcannons, theories, cracks, I could never get enough. For TLJ and TROS, I had lost most interest in the fanfics and the fandom (because as much as I love the movies and some people in the fandom, most of it can eat shit as far as I’m concerned). I heard so many critics of TROS already, I was afraid I was going to be disappointed. But I loved it. Only Star Wars can make me go from utterly uninterested to “Wow I can’t wait to see this new Star Wars in theater, what a time to be alive”, to a stage of total obsession that lasts for months. And that is the reason why I don’t give two shits about anyone disliking the movies. It’s sad you didn’t like them, but it made me feel the same way I felt right back when I was a child watching the original movies with my father. It feels like home. And that is the best thing I could ask for.

Like in TLJ, I cried as soon as I heard the first note of the opening. The last Skywalker story, the last time I ever see my Space Mommy on the big screen...

I know the Reylo community is about to be nuts. The whole movie, like TLJ before it, is basically a series of things we’ve already done in fics and theories. I am 100% positive I have read a fic where Rey and Ren try to hold back a ship with the Force and Rey ends up involuntarily shooting lightning. Whichever one of you did it is probably going to have a stroke in the theater. I nearly did.

And really, I wish I could see the look on the Antis’ faces when they see the movie. I’m sure it is a sight to behold. I wanted to scream “TAKE THAT, BITCHES” more than once. As in TLJ.

My biggest fear was what they would do with Leia. I knew Disney said they wouldn’t use CGI and chose to stick with the scenes Carrie had already shot, and I was afraid it wouldn’t honor Leia’s legacy. Well I... have mixed feelings. While the way they used Carrie’s scenes and made it look like she really is here is to be lauded, it sometimes feels like Leia had nothing interesting to say but they tried to put her in a dialogue anyway, because she needed to be seen doing (or rather, saying) something in the Resistance. And about her death... I still can’t put my finger on what exactly I didn’t like about it but I felt like something was missing. Watching the scene, at first I didn’t know if she was having a heart attack or if she stabbed herself or chose to give up her life because she somehow felt it was the moment, I’m still not sure just why she did what she did. I wish they put something more to motivate her decision and explain what exactly she does. I don’t know, a flashback of Leia holding baby Ben, a little more dialogue, something. Not just Leia suddenly getting up and going to bed whispering her son’s name.

I knew I was going to be disappointed. Among all the celebrities’ deaths, Carrie’s is the one that affected me the most, and believe me I was a wreck when Bowie passed. I miss her, I think about her every single day. And Leia deserved more, much more. When I saw TFA, part of the reason why I loved the movie was that, even though it pained my heart that Han and Leia’s son turned out this way, I thought they would make it right. I spent hours imagining a scene in the 9th movie where Ren would defeat Rey (incapacitate her the Skywalker style cutting her hand or something) and approach to give the killing blow, and Leia would enter the scene, pick up Rey’s lightsaber, look her son dead in the eye and say “Over my dead body, son”. Because Leia would never give up without a fight, even with her son. And she would get her son back, and her story arc would have been completed. I would have paid good money to see this.

Episode 9 was supposed to be Leia’s movie, just like ep. 7 was Han’s and ep. 8 was Luke’s. When Carrie died, I knew it would be compromised and it broke my heart, because Leia deserved better. She lost everything. Her parents, her planet, her father, her husband, her son, her brother, the Rebellion, the Resistance, everything. She fought all the way, all her life even faced with the worst odds she never gave up hope, she inspired hundreds of people to keep fighting for what is right, and she would never have a satisfactory ending. What a fucking heartbreak. She didn’t even get to see Lando. Leia deserved more. Every little girl in this world who grew up with her as a role model deserved more. But c’est la vie, as we say in French... My only solace is that I know fanfics and fanarts are going to make me feel a little better about it.

Of course I cried every time I saw her on screen, and especially when they honored her body, as we all honored Carrie when she passed away. This was one of the many fanservice moments, and surely the one I liked the most, although there was some concurrence (more to it later).

Another thing I didn’t like is what they did to Poe’s character. Many people disliked TLJ because of it, which they attributed to a political agenda of hate on men. This is so ridiculous and has already been debated enough that I won’t get into it. I did like the evolution of his character in TLJ, because for me it was an interesting character development as well as a good message: wartime is not only about barging in fights head first, shoot first think later, as is, let’s be honest, everything Anakin ever does. At one point, the narrative of the reckless hero who saves the day when a situation seems impossible and everyone begs him not to do it gets old. Sometimes in war, you have to think ahead, to plot, and yes, listen to what your allies have to say. And it actually was a good critic of toxic masculinity. Could the conflict between Poe and Holdo have been avoided with minimally sane conversation ? YES. But the message was here (as were Holdo’s hair and dress and WOW gurl) and I thought that was it, and Poe would evolve into a wiser person.

But this Poe is, at least in the first half of the movie, not very likable. Hear me, I never really liked Han Solo (never been into macho men) but I really loved Poe in TFA because he was genuinely nice and brave. Here, he’s bitter and annoying. I told myself that he was jealous of Rey because he heard of Finn’s crush on her and he wanted to keep Finn all for himself, which I know is just a crack headcannon, but hey, anything to make it better I guess.

Of course, I’ll never forgive Disney for not making FinnPoe a thing, when even Oscar Isaac ships them hard. And trying to make Poe flirt with the other girl (whose name I even forgot and whose face we didn’t even see, now tell me again how Star Wars has been corrupted by feminists... sigh) Speaking of, it is me or did two women kiss at the end ?

I liked the new droid, it reminded me of my puppy. But at the end, it was just another fanservice moment, it didn’t really do anything useful onscreen apart from being cute and funny.

When Rey was finally revealed to be a Palpatine as I hoped, I giggled like a wee girl. Watching TFA, I begged the old gods and the new that they wouldn’t make her another Skywalker, because it would’ve spoiled the Star Wars spirit for me. The whole franchise, in my opinion, is a story about fighting for what you believe is right, no matter who you or your parents are or where you come from. Even though Luke and Leia’s ended up being Vader’s children, they weren’t the only meaningful characters. Anakin was basically a Space Jesus and went from a total nobody to the Chosen One. I didn’t want Rey to be a Skywalker because it would mean that your importance would only ever lay in your bloodline, and that is depressing and totally against the spirit of the Rebellion/Resistance: no matter who you are, you can fight for what is right. For this reason, I wished for Rey to be either a real nobody or Palpatine’s granddaughter, which is also why I liked the fact that Han and Leia’s son turned out bad, even though it made me sad for them (Leia didn’t deserve this). No matter your bloodline, you can always make things right, or fuck up badly if you let yourself be taken away. And, of course, the reveal that Rey and Kylo Ren are two sides of the same coin (aka one of the many times where I picture us Reylos screaming CALLED IT in our seats) was exactly what I hoped for, a beautiful balance. I didn’t share Palpatine’s implication that a Palpatine and a Skywalker are meant to work together, though. That is not how I choose to interpret this duality. That is not what they end up doing, anyway.

Speaking of that old pal Patine, seeing the trailers I feared I would feel nauseated that they chose to reanimate the Big Old Villain, just like they reanimated the Even Bigger Death Star in TFA (how lazy can you be ?). But I enjoyed it. What saved it was Palpatine’s will to be killed by Rey to perpetuate the Sith rite of passage. I don’t even care if it’s cannon or not. I was afraid they would recreate Vader’s dilemma in ROTJ with Rey, but I liked the choices she made. And the throne scene worked for me. Like the rest of the movie it was flawed, for instance we don’t even get an explanation on how he survived. Just like we don’t even get what Finn wanted to tell Rey, even though it was emphasized several times. Was it a love declaration ? What happened to the rushed romance with Rose in TLJ ? (What happened to Rose, actually). While we’re at it, why did Palpatine want Ren to kill Rey ? So many questions. So many flaws.

And, of course I cannot comment this film without mentioning my sweet star-crossed lovers, Rey and Ben. First, I’m really eager to see your reactions. We did it, Reylos! Years of hate and slander and we were right all along. Let’s rejoice.

I like Rey’s evolution. For the moment, I don’t feel like I have too much to say about it (which is fine because this post is way too long already). I like the way she handles her emotions, I like her choices and her character evolution.

And Ben. Oh, sweet Ben. Although I think the part where he gets his old mask fixed wasn’t necessary, I kinda like what they did with him as well. I must say though that I liked his hair in TFA better. Oh boy, I loved Kylo Ren but I absolutely adore Ben Solo. And I think the way the movie depicts him even surpasses some fics. The moment when Rey gives him the lightsaber and he gets up and does the Han shrug ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I almost lost my mind. This ties with the hommage to Leia’s body as my favorite fanservice moment.

And their relationship... Look, I know I wet my pants really enjoyed myself in TLJ when they held hands, but that scene felt rushed even for me who ships them with the force of a thousand suns. Like many things in TLJ (and, as I said, also in TROS) it felt like things I had already seen in fanfics, but in the fics I enjoyed the most Rey had tried to kill him at least 5 mores times before even agreeing to have a one-on-one conversation with him. Their romance in TLJ felt like it was hormone-driven, but I get Johnson couldn’t really do a slow burn in 2 hours. When Leia died and they both felt it in the Force, I could feel that Rey wanted to touch him, to confort him, to grieve with him. I’m glad she didn’t. It wasn’t time. And I really like that she told him she wanted to hold Ben’s hand, not his. And Ben, the Dork Knight, finally realized that if he wanted The Girl, he shouldn’t, you know, threaten her and chase her but get back to the Light Side like she begged him multiple times. Because he really isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, this is apparently what makes him choose to tip over. That or the fact she saved his life. I was still frustrated by Leia’s death so I don’t know if I’m not entirely convinced because it happened just after, I’d have to watch it again. I liked Han’s moment, though.

And in my opinion, Rey and Ren’s fight on the wreck of the Death Star is as good as Anakin and Obi-Wan’s. My Reylo heart will always have a special place for their couple fight in TLJ (aka the best non-sex sex scene in cinema, don’t @ me) but I also liked this fight in light of their relation. Surprisingly, it reminded me more of their fight at the end of TFA, when we see Ren holding his blows and Rey barging in. I thought it was endearing.

The end. Oh my god, the end. I can’t wait to see the first gifs and I really really can’t wait for the HD gifs, because oh boy, I now only live for Ben Solo’s smile. That’s it, I found my will to live, my depression is cured. And the way he handles Rey’s body with the utmost care (while Finn apparently watches it and does or says nothing). And that kiss... And the SMILE. And the KISS.

Oh, dear gods. Oh dear.

I can’t wait for the first fics in which Ben doesn’t die and they live happily ever after on Tatooine or Naboo or wherever they damn want. Or the fics where he is indeed dead and they still share a beautiful relationship (if Force Ghost Luke could get his X-Wing out of the water, I’m eager to imagine what Ben would do with his Force dick, tongue and fingers. Forgive me, it’s getting late and I’m still flustered thinking of their kiss)

And the fact that she declares herself a Skywalker ? I know a lot of people are disappointed in this, but apart from the fact that she completely deserves the title in my opinion when she inherited the will of both Luke and Leia, which is reason enough, she is absolutely married to Ben and deserves her place in that family. Also, it’s again a beautiful way to remind you that bloodlines don’t matter as much as what we choose to do with our lives. And while I’m glad they showed Leia’s Force ghost (I would’ve been really mad if they didn’t) I’m super frustrated they didn’t show Ben’s. What am I to believe, that he gave his life for her, became one with the Force and vanished into litteral nothingness for him to never be seen again ? Like hell I don’t. Again, counting on the fics and arts to right this wrong.

The movie sure has its flaws, and I still have many unanswered questions, like what the fuck is the badge Maz gives Chewie, or how Rey does her lightsaber staff at the end, and I wish they explained some things better. I wasn’t sure if the saber Leia wanted Rey to have was hers or her mother’s. Most of those questions will be answered by bigger geeks than me in this fandom, so I really can’t wait to read from y’all.

I know a whole lot of people are going to hate the movie. The antis, the gatekeeping trve fans (already I’ve seen people say that those who enjoyed the movies are not Real Star Wars Fans and welp, we’re going to see a lot of shit). The manbabies who genuinely believe in a feminist takeover and see equality as a direct threat. I’m specifically happy they will be disappointed while I got the privilege of enjoying Star Wars as much as I did. It’s not my fault, or Disney’s fault even, that they turned out to be on the Empire’s side. And the day has not come when I defend a megacorporation.

Leia was the first SJW. The Resistance lives on. People will always fight against evil, like it or not. I know the world is a shitty place and we don’t have much hope nowadays for things to get better, and Star Wars has always motivated me to keep going and stick to my values and my convictions. I felt chills several times in the movie, like at the end where everyone comes to fight, and now I’m more willing to keep fighting than ever. For Leia.

Godspeed, Rebels!

#star wars spoilers #tros spoilers #star wars #the rise of skywalker #ben solo #rey #kylo ren #palpatine #alright now I go to sleep

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that-shamrock-vibe · 4 years

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Movie Reviews: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review a few days after the movie first drops in the U.K, so if you haven’t yet seen the movie don’t read on.

Fan-Service:

Alright so before jumping into the character analysis, which I probably should just do because I have a lot to say, I want to quickly talk about a major problem with this movie, and yes I will be saying that a lot, and that is the fan-service.

There is a heeping load of fan-service moments and things just thrown in to either make fans nostalgic of what has come before or just to say they did it and I at large am pissed off because every bit of fan-service here I personally did not ask for and nothing I wanted as a fan was there.

For instance, Lando. I love Lando and will talk about him in his own section further down but I did not see the point of him in this movie. Billy Dee Williams still looks good in the role, but the man did nothing to contribute to the progression of the movie or the mission other than go off and get reinforcements which anyone else already in this trilogy could have done, like Maz Kanata...what did she contribute also?

Also Ewoks, I’m sorry I know the last part of this movie was on Endor because said system is around the place the Death Star fell and Palpatine still resides, but my freakin’ god seeing a split second shot of two Ewoks, who again I loved in Episode VI, but also to get Warwick Davies back to play Wicket (I think that’s the same one anyway)...what was the freakin’ point?

My final rant point is on the quite blatant fan service of LGBT representation. This particular topic is personal to me as a gay man and someone whose academic venture over the last three years has been about LGBT representation.

When you have quite a clear fanbase or sub fandom that are screaming for certain shipping couples, but then refuse to deliiver on the gay male ship in favour of the predictable hetero ship, to the point where this movie gives both Finn and Poe female love interests and makes Finn look slightly like a tool for having two other love interests but still wanting Rey...all of this I can forgive because it is kind of like the “Stucky” ship in the MCU.

However, to then, out of nowhere, have a lesbian kiss between two Resistance members at the end of the film during celebrations, one of whom was apparently the harbinger of doom because she delivered all the bad news and the other was a pilot, who I know was also Rosa Parks in Doctor Who so happy she has a role like this, but again it just felt forced, out of nowhere, with characters no one cares about and honestly I would have been happier seeing Poe and Finn kiss.

Characters:

Rey:

As I said in my non-spoiler review, Rey truly comes into her own as a Jedi in this movie. I do think The Last Jedi only really serviced her and moved her piece forward on the development chessboard.

However, while it is great to see Leia mentoring Rey at the start of the movie and doing a serviceable job, the fact Luke is still mentoring her from beyond the grave and his teachings are being upheld and honoured by Rey is really great to see.

This does not however justify the end of this movie, which is where we begin with Rey’s character.

One of the biggest mysteries of this trilogy has been discovering who Rey is and where she fits in with Star Wars lore. We know that Finn was a Stormtrooper and Poe fulfills that Han Solo role, but while Rey fills the Jedi quota for the trilogy, fans have long-suspected that she is somehow related to either Luke, Leia, Han or even Obi-Wan Kenobi.

I don’t think anyone was expecting her to actually be revealed as the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine...and to be honest I don’t think anyone actually wanted it.

It’s a losing battle comparing any movie to Avengers: Endgame, but during Avengers: Endgame when big character and plot moments hit, the audience erupted in either shock or cheers. I get the feeling that the reveal of Rey being a Palpatine was supposed to ignite that type of response. I had a moderately full audience and there was no reaction from them.

However, not only does this service Rey as a character for the second half of the movie because her character motivation is not only about battling her inner demons and heritage, but also discovering who she is in her own right...something she has been searching for since we first met the character on Jakku in The Force Awakens

This leads to the last scene of the movie which is a culmination of not just the last three movies but also her confrontation with Palpatine. On Tatooine just outside the Lars Homestead, Rey buries both Luke and Leia’s lightsabers. She then surprisingly pulls out her own lightsaber which happens to be yellow...or gold (if it’s meant to be grey or white the lighting did it no favours) and with her sidekick BB-8 heads off into the twin sunsets, but not before some random old woman asks who she is, she responds with “Rey” but when she asks “Rey who?” she looks to the left and sees the Force Ghosts of Luke and Leia and turns back to the woman answering with, “Rey Skywalker”.

This is what is meant by the title “The Rise of Skywalker” as the name will now live-on in Rey, who has adopted the name only. She is not actually a Skywalker and if you think about the fact Rey and Kylo kissed a few scenes prior to this, it is kind of disturbing that she sees both Luke as a father figure and Leia as a mother figure.

I am not happy with this development for two reasons 1) It’s a cheat, not only is it a cheat of promise in the title but it’s a cheat in practise because Rey wasn’t revealed to be a secret Skywalker she merely decided to use the name as a surname because I guess “Rey Palpatine” would not serve her well.

I also don’t like the idea of a surname being used as a mantle, we now have seen six “Skywalkers” either officially or unofficially so in the movie canon and out of the six, five either are or were Jedi or at least “ones with the force” because both Leia and Ben (Kylo Ren) have never been Jedi at least in the movies but while Ben was a Sith, Leia was an apprentice and both had access to the force.

Shmi I believe (Anakin’s mother) is the only named “Skywalker” to not have any attachment or affiliations with the force. Now I don’t know if Skywalker is her maiden name or married name but aside from her, as I said, everyone with the Skywalker bloodline has at least had a “force sense” so to make Rey the last of the Jedi, that we know of, and also now giving her the name of Skywalker just to honour Luke and Leia and not actually be related does seem a tad cheap to me.

It’s not like when Han and Leia named their son Ben after Ben Kenobi, Obi-Wan’s hermit name, because that was honouring a fallen friend. I get Rey officially has no living family, particularly after killing her grandfather, and choosing to adopt the Skywalker name is both a way for the name to live on in her and to honour both her mentors, but this is supposed to be the end of the Skywalker era and with Rey newly being a Skywalker at the end of the movie and also once again seemingly being on her own (with BB-8) on her adventures at the end it just seems like there is more to come from her and I really don’t think there should be.

I am not saying Daisy Ridley can never come back as Rey in any future Star Wars movies but I’m thinking more in a Harrison Ford/Billy Dee Williams way not a Mark Hamill/Carrie Fisher way, at least not for now.

Also, I mentioned in my non-spoiler that a lot was promised leading up to this movie and something the trailers teased heavily was “Dark Rey”. The two biggest theories surrounding this reveal of Rey as a Sith with collapsible double-edged red lightsaber were that 1) Rey would legitimately turn to the dark side and Ben Solo would be the one to bring her back to the light or that 2) The Dark Rey we saw would be some sort of vision, hallucination or dream akin to when Luke believed he was fighting Vader during his training with Yoda on Dagobah and in fact it was an illusion used as a metaphor for him fighting his inner darkness.

It turned out, of course, to be the latter theory but the movie at least had the reveal of Rey being a Palpatine to explain why the 30 second scene we see this vision in exists...no lie it’s about the same amount of time as Luke battled himself for in Episode V.

Basically when Rey was filled with rage over Kylo Ren while trying to save Chewie from being taken by the First/Final Order, she succumbed to her anger and rather than using the force in the traditional sense she was discovered to have the ability to produce force lightning, as only Sith Lords have been able to do.

While Dark Rey did look cool, I’m glad she wasn’t actually Rey and we actually had to spend a chunk of the movie with her as a Sith, particularly not with that lightsaber.

I’ll be talking about him again when I talk about Palpatine but the only master of the double-edged lightsaber for me is Darth Maul. That’s his thing in my opinion aside from his looks and he owns it.

On the positives of Rey, I do like the fact that they have set her up as the feminist hero in the same sense that Moana and Belle are feminist Disney princesses. I think obviously making Rey the focus of the trilogy meant that more young girls would look up to her as opposed to Leia or Padmé before her and so making her the strong and tenacious Jedi Knight that she is was one of the best things about this trilogy, when done right.

I did also like how she interacted with Finn and Poe, I’m not entirely sure why they have the type of banter they had due to the lack of the trio interacting in this trilogy but I enjoyed the sparring between Rey and Poe over the Falcon damage and BB-8 damage and even when it seemed Finn was about to profess his love for Rey before dying but then not dying and so going quiet about it and Rey effectively calling him out for it.

However, what did Rey wrong throughout this trilogy is just how easy everything seemed to come for her. As I said before she was often off on her own mission without Poe and Finn with only BB-8 and sometimes Chewie for company. The fact we never saw her properly train with a lightsaber or the force before being revealed as an expert with both still annoys me and here, the fact she goes to give up after Leia’s death but is stopped by Luke, a Force Ghost, who then reveals that she is in fact not stranded after burning her ship because Luke has his old X-Wing summoned from the depths of the sea was just stupid.

Also, where did Rey get her new lightsaber from? Because unless Leia left it for her or R2 created it for her we don’t know where it came from or why it is distinctly different to Luke and Leia’s.

Finn:

Finn I feel revealed himself as my favourite character of the new trilogy during this movie, meaning originating in this trilogy, because I haven’t really had one up until now due to the lack of any likeable development throughout.

However, John Boyega really does Finn justice here not only making the character more likeable but also giving him a potentially great character development arc that could see him come full circle from when we first met him during The Force Awakens.

The only problem is, from what we see, this story abruptly goes completely nowhere.

The development comes when the trio arrive on Kef Bir where the Death Star remains are and come across a tribe of freedom fighters led by Naomi Acke’s waste of a character Jannah.

It’s revealed that Jannah and her tribe were once in fact Stormtroopers but, like Finn, decided to rebel against their Sith overlords and vowed to aide the resistance to thwart them.

This could have been how Finn’s story ended had he made the decision to join the freedom fighters by the end of the movie, now granted with no Sith or First Order there’s no need for freedom fighters but just for Finn to have found his people and his place to belong would have been a fitting ending for him.

Also to any shippers out there hoping for a Finn/Poe romance, I think the writers made it quite clear in this movie that both guys have eyes for the ladies with Finn apparently interested in Rose, Rey and Jannah.

The Finn-Poe bromance is in full bloom here though, finally, and it is filled with both the banter that I so hate in laddish behaviour but still enjoy here and also the fact that they can both be real with each other even when it’s something the other may not want to hear.

I am annoyed they never really wrapped anything up for Finn, aside from him finding his tribe but not actually sticking with them. The movie kept throwing out curve balls to do with his story and character but never had them either caught or thrown back, so his story is still all over the place.

Would I want to see John Boyega return? I guess yes if he does return with Jannah and maybe even Lando, I have a theory on where that will go, because at least it is a newer direction for the character.

Kylo Ren:

I never liked Kylo Ren or Adam Driver, I have never really seen the appeal in either of them and believe Kylo is simply Darth Vader-lite. I’ve always hated that mask and even now it has notable cracks I still don’t like it. I just feel as though the mask was always Vader’s thing and Kylo’s is the fact that he has that lightsaber sword.

That being said, once again the most notable plot point in this movie is the relationship between Kylo and Rey. The chemistry is quite easily there, I do see these two as a couple in another reality and Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver do sell that rather well.

I did come to enjoy their shared force communication in this movie particularly as it was noted to have some interesting side-effects, most notably the ability to take something from the other’s location. I audibally gasped when Kylo snatched that necklace from Rey and that’s how he knew where she was, similarly how when Rey accidentally destroyed that plinth with Vader’s helmet on and it fell at Kylo’s feet he knew she was in his quarters.

My favourite example of this go was at the very end when Rey was facing off against Palpatine and Ben (Kylo reformed) was facing off against the Knights of Ren and Rey was able to psychically transport her lightsaber to him. I can’t remember if it was Luke or Leia’s she gave to him but I do hope it was Leia’s because him fighting with his mother’s lightsaber would have been so awesome.

Speaking of his reform, I found that to be the sloppiest moment in the movie. I really did not understand the quickness in which he went from wanting to turn Rey to the dark side to denouncing the Sith altogether. Now yes, your mother dying is going to be a turmoil for any individual and seeing the ghost of your father, because yes Han Solo returns in this movie, is going to throw you...but there was no real internal struggle and it just seemed again very rushed and the almost as if the writers were saying “Well the audience know this is where we were always going to take the character so there’s no need for the internal struggle to be shown”.

Also, I understand that he didn’t exactly have time for a costume change and merely took off his Kylo Ren armour, but then he merely looked like he was wearing pyjamas in that final battle. I wasn’t expecting an Elsa level transformation or anything but something a bit more...more.

Then when it did come to Ben joining Rey in battling Palpatine and Palpatine, quite strategically in my opinion, sent him flying down that pit, the fact that he anticlimactically climbed up the pit I originally thought was the movie saying “See a Skywalker rose” similarly to how The Dark Knight Rises had Batman climbing up that cliff-face. But no, apparently the “Rise of Skywalker” was nothing to do with an actual Skywalker.

The most confusing part of this movie though is what exactly happened at the very end of the movie when Ben died and Leia faded away at the same time. Leia’s “last great act” was to stop Ben from battling Rey, this seemingly caused her to die. However, when Ben died, Leia faded. So are we presuming that somehow Leia enthralled her son to be good? If so, was his redemption a fake? Also if so, did Rey technically kiss Leia not Ben?

Yes, this kiss was the biggest anti-climax in the entire trilogy. Everyone has been pushing for a “Reylo” coupling and it finally happens only for Ben to die immediately after, it was pure and simple fan service.

Poe Dameron:

I have never really cared for Poe, nothing particularly against him or Oscar Isaac but I just felt as if the character was always trying too hard to be Han Solo and failing every time.

This movie not only emphasised how much of a waste Poe had been, but also why you should always be careful what you wish for because it may happen and it may transpire that you are not as attuned to it as you thought you were.

I am talking about Poe now being the General of the Resistance after Leia’s death and effectively leading the Resistance to their doom. I remember when Han was made a general during Return of the Jedi and while he was also slightly incompetent he at least learned from mistakes whereas Poe...got so many people killed he should have been court-marshalled.

Every action he made in this movie seemed to be wrong and he was continuously pulled up on it by everyone, Finn, Rey, Chewie, even 3PO. I quite liked the concept of doing that lightspeed jumping that apparently you’re not supposed to do because it reminded me of Guardians 2, but they weren’t supposed to do it there either and that wasn’t at the consequence of damaging the Millennium Falcon!

Also, they made a blatant reference that Poe had a previous lover in Kari Mitchell’s character, but the only problem with this is we’ve never heard anything about Poe’s history prior to the events of this trilogy so we are supposed to care about it now? When the trilogy is about to end?

Had we heard from episode 1 about hints of Poe’s history and maybe a lost or abandoned lover then seeing their reunion here may have held some weight...but with what we got it didn’t work.

I don’t even know where we left Poe aside from obviously being a war hero for being the leader of the Resistance. But unlike Rey who has gone off to do her own thing and Finn who has the potential to be going off with Jannah and her tribe, Poe doesn’t really have a place.

Even BB-8, who seems to be Poe’s main concern throughout this movie, goes off with Rey, so where does that leave him?

General Leia:

As I said in my non-spoiler review, it is such a shame that this is the lasting impression fans will have of General Leia. I am not saying they should have altered Episode VIII to include Leia’s death but there was something so disjointed about her involvement in this movie.

That being said, I did enjoy some of her lines to Rey at the start of the movie and they did try very hard to make it flow with the story despite clearly being lines meant for another situation. I liked all her pearls of wisdom to her about trusting droids and being comfortable with who you are.

However, this movie’s greatest insult is definitely showing a flashback to Luke and Leia training as Luke was clearly Leia’s Jedi Master at some point after Episode VI.

Now yes, we were shown a de-aged Luke and Leia so they looked slightly like how they did during Episode VI, and it was dark enough a setting that they didn’t look as bad as Leia did at the end of Rogue One, but that one scene sparks a great controversy with this whole trilogy.

Why the heck haven’t we ever had a follow-up movie to Episode VI that simply focuses on Luke, Leia and Han? A movie that shows Leia being trained as a Jedi would have not only satisfied a lot of movie-centric fans curiosities but also would have set up this trilogy slightly better with maybe showing Leia pregnant with Ben and why Luke chose to isolate himself, why Leia and Han’s marriage broke down. Something just to give fans of the original trilogy closure and then introduce these new characters rather than having the original trilogy and new trilogy all try to co-exist and wrap up at the same time.

Also, I swear in this one scene we saw Luke’s lightsaber was green so why were both his and Leia’s lightsabers blue when Rey had them?

Then also with her actual death, as I said with Kylo felt rather anti-climactic and weird. I understand fully that Carrie Fisher’s passing was a complete shock for everyone and so they had to work with what they had, but not only does it simply feel like Leia getting into bed and then death, you have Maz expositioning it before it happens...is that why Maz is back? To be the exposition of the movie?

Again I love Lupita and understand why she was cast in Episode VII because she was the hot ticket to have back then, but she doesn’t do anything in these movies.

I did appreciate her line of “Goodbye princess”, that did spark some emotion that wasn’t annoyance or rage and was sadness for both Leia and Carrie Fisher so the movie got me there.

Lando Calrissian:

Billy Dee Williams as Lando was one of my favourite things about the original trilogy. I loved how similar he was to Han but while Harrison Ford had an almost smouldering rogue quality about him, Lando was suave and cool with this real jazzy vibe about him.

Even seeing him back it was a bright spot in this movie, however, I don’t think he was utilised as well as he could have been. After Leia died and Poe was gathering the Resistance for a mission debrief, Lando looked like that old war veteran that was simply there to lend advice, when in actuality he was the one with the most experience, who fought the Empire once before and won so why wasn’t he saying what was what?

Then at the very end when everyone is celebrating the victory, Lando randomly comes across Jannah who asks where he’s from and he responds “Gold System” while she responds with not knowing where she is from and so he says “Let’s find out”. I don’t know if they’re trying to go down the route that Lando is Jannah’s father maybe but they are definitely pushing for either a spin-off or some form of continuation to this particular story.

Now again, I liked Jannah here, and feel a movie focusing on Lando, Jannah and even Finn would work. But it was so randomly placed at the very end of the movie that it just seemed like the writers had no idea what to do with either character.

Also I did not like the fact Lando never had a scene with Leia in the movie, just simply one scene where the two reminisce about old times or talk about Han would have been good but instead we had another Star Wars alum return and not interact with anyone else from the alumni cast.

The Resistance:

I mentioned the Resistance a bit with most characters but here is my problem with them as an organization, they are not organised! The Resistance was formed in Episode IV to thwart the Empire, they destroyed two Death Stars and seemingly saw the death of the Emperor...when in actuality the Emperor survived and simply rebranded the Empire into the First Order so they failed on their main mission.

Then for the last three movies what exactly have they achieved? Because I cannot point out one successful thing this organisation has managed to achieve on their own. Rey was the one to kill the Emperor which saw the end of the First/Final Order, all the Resistance did was provide cannon fodder.

Also, when Lando finally arrived with the cavelry, I don’t know if they were trying to imply that some of the voices you heard were cameos from the shows but again, I don’t watch the shows. I know I saw both John Williams and Lin Minuel Miranda in cameo roles during the big air battle which I felt were both good and bad elements because they were so random but all in all, I have never been a fan of the Resistance.

Also Greg Grunberg, I like the actor, I liked him on Heroes, I know he is friends with JJ Abrams...but there is doing your friend a solid, and then there is making your movie more pointless then it needs to be. He was unnecessary and I’m glad he died.

Villains:

Okay so I have labelled this section “Villains” because I don’t think even they know what they’re calling themselves anymore. They were originally the First Order, then they changed their name to the Final Order, this got laughs from my audience because it was so stupid. Then Palpatine tried creating his new Empire which lasted all of 5 minutes...there was no order to this First, Final or Any Order.

As for Palpatine himself, his return was very abrupt as it was right at the start of the movie. I did enjoy the atmosphere they set up around the villain with the lightning and the desolate wasteland but what was with that fecking crane? I get he has no legs but the result was him looking more like a Dementor than the all-powerful formidable Emperor Palpatine.

Also, he mentioned how “The dark side of the force grants powers unthinkable”...which still doesn’t explain how he is still alive or reborn after being thrown down that tunnel in Episode VI.

Again, the reveal of him having Rey as a granddaughter came out of nowhere because we never knew Palpatine had a family, despite the fact Palpatine is one of few characters we have seen throughout the first two trilogies.

I did appreciate them establishing Ben and Rey’s bond as a type off life force energy which Palpatine utilised to rejuvenate himself. Although why he didn’t rejuvinate himself back to human form rather than the wrinkled old man is beyond me.

In regards to the First Order, the reveal that General Hux was in fact a spy giving secrets to the Resistance was again laughable, just him revealing “I’m the spy!” was enough to make me laugh.

Again Domnhall Gleeson is a good actor but this role has been so extreme and overdramatic that it has become a cartoon rather than a legitimate threat.

As for Richard E. Grant, people are really quick to insult Idris Elba for Cats but I think the actor who needs a word with his agent is Richard because, as much as he loves this franchise, he wasn’t quite enthralled in the world and rather seemingly playing the part of someone who is lucky enough to be on the movie.

My final point is on the fact that Palpatine claimed he is the culmination of all the Sith, meaning he has all the souls of all the past Sith in him. This is quite reminiscent to me of the Dark Swan arc in Once Upon a Time where Emma, and later Hook, became the Dark One and was able to summon all the past Dark Ones.

However, unlike Rey who was able to hear the voices of all the past Jedi, we only heard two past Sith Lords voices in Vader and Snoke. I know it wouldn’t be right to provide new voice clips for most of them because Christopher Lee, who portrayed Dooku, is sadly dead, but just to hear Darth Maul, Dooku and even General Grievous along with Vader and Snoke would have been a nice touch.

Meanwhile on the Jedi side you apparently had the voices of Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan both young and old, Mace Windu, Luke Skywalker, Yoda...and then you have a bunch of others who I don’t know because I don’t watch Clone Wars or Rebels so I didn’t recognise any of them.

Future:

Alright so where does the future of this franchise leave us...well we know that Disney+ is currently making waves with The Mandalorian and will soon to be hopefully making more waves with the Cassian Andor and Obi-Wan Kenobi shows, however in terms of movies I am not sure where they go from here.

I do feel the most logical step is to focus on rebuilding during the hiatus and then coming back stronger.

Overall I rate the movie a 5/10, this movie was a complete hot mess. There were no solid great moments and aside from some great lightsaber battles between Reylo as well as some okay space battles towards the end of the movie, but the story was practically non-existence and there was no finality that the end of an era requires.

So that’s my spoiler review for Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Movie Reviews as well as other posts.

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lj-writes · 5 years

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"It seemed really important to split Rey and Finn up. That was something that caused concern early on, because The Force Awakens is driven by the amazing chemistry between John and Daisy. But I was confident that it was absolutely essential for both of their characters to have that safety blanket torn away. I felt that it would be very hard for either of their characters to grow if they weren't split apart and put on their own journeys, even more so for Finn than Rey."

- Rian Johnson

This quote, like much else that comes out of RJ’s mouth, is horseshit. It is because Finn and Rey were together in TFA that they were able to grow. Left to their own devices, Finn would have escaped to the Outer Rim and Rey would have stayed on Jakku. Their relationship was no “safety blanket,” not some childish phase to cast aside. They went to both the heights of ecstasy and the lows of despair because of each other: the first time their eyes met, liking what they saw; circling each other like in a dance, delighted to have found each other; Finn screaming Rey’s name when Kylo carried her away; embracing in relief in the middle of enemy territory as though nothing could tear them away (except Han); Rey sobbing on Finn’s chest, indifferent to her own survival, waiting to die together on a disintegrating planet.

Exactly which one of these moments is some warm fuzzy safety blanket that inhibits personal growth? What part of Finn moving heaven and earth in a fight that he was willing to walk away from moments before said “Hmm, he can’t be a hero if he’s with Rey?” This has been said before, but Finn’s thinking of himself and caring for one person isn’t selfish or reactionary or whatever RJ wants to paint it as. It is an act of defiance in itself, forced as he was to eschew personal attachments and give himself over for a greater cause (sound like any other organization we know? The FO canonically modeled their Stormtrooper program on the Jedi, for Chrissakes this in the novelization for your own shitty movie Rian). Finn asserting himself as an individual capable of love and attachment was a revolutionary act in of itself, and if RJ had the imagination and creativity that God gave a gnat he would see how Finn’s love for Rey and hers for him have so much greater ramifications for the politics and cosmology of SW as a whole.

This is why the extremely shallow reading of Finn and Rey as having an all-fluffy-all-the-time, conflict-free relationship, a reading I have criticized before, has real consequences not only in fandom but on the franchise itself. People, including the writer and director of one of the movies, could not see the depth that existed within and between these characters. But somehow fandom, including RJ, shits their pants finding all kinds of intriguing drama and torment in an entitled white male mass murderer. This is like a textbook case of an empathy gap.

RJ’s comments here also betray a shallow and disturbing view of what conflict in fiction consists of. RJ’s idea of a conflict that helps character grows consisted of Rose physically hurting and verbally berating Finn, and of Kylo Ren belittling and manipulating Rey. Basically the idea seems to be that people can’t grow in caring and loving relationships, but rather must be forced into the company of those who mistreat them. Plenty of fans have the same reading as well, praising Rose for “setting Finn straight” (barf) or saying Kylo helped Rey grow by giving her honest truths (if you think “Rey is nothing without 'Ben’” is an honest truth, well...).

Basically, RJ endorses the destructive view that abuse is an agent of personal growth, if only because it takes effort to get out of the abuse. I could say a lot here about how abuse has NOT helped me grow: rather it forced me to waste the time and energy I could have used for personal growth doubting myself and stepping over the hurdles placed in my own mind. I would be a much stabler and happier person if I had not grown up abused. I don’t dwell on it, nor do I spend my time blaming my abuser (as he accuses me of doing), but it’s just true.

But let’s say RJ isn’t endorsing abuse as promoting personal growth in real life and is talking strictly about what he sees as making a good story. For one thing, this division is meaningless because stories are hollow unless they tell some truth about life: Space wizards are not fucking real, but abuse, recovery, love, and personal growth are. For another, and even more seriously, it doesn’t make for a good story because it’s formulaic and doesn’t say anything new or helpful. Mistreatment toughens you up and prepares you for the real world. Love is a safety blanket, with all the echo of childish things that must be discarded, and you can’t truly grow if you’re safe. How is any of this a good, or creative, or empowering story? It’s the same toxic crap we’ve been fed for decades, something The Force Awakens was a welcome break from. People have talked at length about how much Finn and Rey’s relationship meant to them, how great it is to see two traumatized people helping each other grow in a relationship that is actually healthy. But I guess that just wasn’t edgy enough for RJ’s artistic sensibilities.

The more I hear from RJ the more I am convinced that he was exactly the wrong person to direct a continuation to TFA because not only is his understanding of the movie completely off, he is simply a bad artist who uncritically accepts awful storytelling conventions for all his pretensions of being an iconoclast. Thank goodness he’s gone for IX, and thank God and JJ that he went out of his way to renegotiate a preexisting contract just so he could come back and do IX. My expectations for IX are not high but at least it is unlikely to be the flaming crud that was TLJ.

(Originally posted to Pillowfort)

#seeing that quote reminded me again of how i hate the man #tlj critical #anti rian johnson #star wars #the force awakens #finnrey #fandom racism #fandom misogyny #white prioritization #empathy gap #meta #rant #queue are you #first of all

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marybeatriceofmodena · 6 years

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The Last Jedi - a review (part 1 of 128390, probably)

WARNING: This review is not spoiler-free. Read at your own risk.

So... I saw TLJ last Friday, guys. My review... will come in separate parts, for the simple and good reason that in the last few days, I wrote something like 10k words about it, and I’m not even done yet. I shit you not.

I’ve only seen TLJ once, so far, but I feel like I need to see it again, because it’s some pretty multi-layered stuff. Overall... I liked it. I don’t love it, but I liked it, and strangely enough, even if on the other hand, I LOVED TFA despite all its flaws, I’d put TLJ above TFA. But as I said, I need to see it again.

Going onto the technical stuff... I’m glad I made a big movie marathon of all SW films, because… TLJ feels different from all of them, from a stylistic point of view. The OT was very simplistic in its filming, ANH in particular, mainly because of the Kurosawa influence. The PT was also that way in intimate scenes, except in the grandiose ones where you had CGI extravaganza.

TFA… had a very “polished” and “shiny” feel to it, lens flares and all, but that’s JJ Abrams’ style. TLJ... it really felt like an indie movie. Which isn’t surprising, considering Rian Johnson is directing. There were a lot of types of shots used that you don’t usually see in blockbuster movies, but mostly in indie films – beautiful shots though. There were A LOT OF CLOSEUPS, to the point it was distracting, but the acting was pretty dang good, so it made up for it.

And when I say the acting is good, I mean it’s REALLY REALLY FUCKING GOOD. Best acting I’ve ever seen in a Star Wars movie, ever. I can’t think of a single weak performance.

The pacing was… meh. Sometimes, it worked. Sometimes it felt choppy, and sometimes, it was just bad. The fight against the Praetorians was cut at least twice while it should have been one big scene, and honestly… Finn and Rose’s mission is supposed to be this big race against time, but we never get that feeling? It may be due to the fact we get cuts to Ahch-To and that it really looks like time doesn’t pass at the same speed as it does elsewhere (which would make sense, considering how varied the time for planets to orbit around their suns can be), but it still felt off.

And that’s basically just one of the reasons why while I think TLJ was better than TFA when it came to managing the timeline (because jeez, TFA was SO fast-paced), but when it came to how the scenes were cut, TFA’s got the upper hand, ESB was a superior movie because while the timeline was a wee bit sloppy, the pacing was PERFECT, and it made you forget about that.

I liked the soundtrack for TLJ better than for TFA. The only memorable music for TFA was Rey, Kylo and the Resistance’s themes. In TLJ, the soundtrack was a lot more present, and it sounded great. Just my opinion, though, and I haven’t listened to the whole thing, yet.

The only time I didn’t like the humor was when Finn was walking around the Resistance ship in his suit, with bacta spilling all over the place. Like, him getting out of the tank was funny, and it’s probably going to become a reaction gif to “Me getting up in the morning late”, but him walking around with bacta spilling was just cringe.

The rest of the humor was fine. Pretty much every funny thing with Luke made people in the theater laugh (I mean, come on, Luke wiping his suit after getting shot on by twenty-something canons probably had Padmé’s Force ghost screaming), Chewie and the porgs were funny, and… I get it why some people wouldn’t like Poe teasing Hux, but it’s in character for him (“Who talks first? You talk first?”), and Hux just takes the bait, which makes it even funnier.

Seriously, if Kylo REALLY wants to drive Hux crazy, he should take some lessons from Poe.

Also… I’m going to say this, and I know some people are not going to like it. This is not about managing your expectations: personally, I hate it when people do that. This is about a feeling I’ve had about TLJ for a long time…

Thing is, deep down, I knew that every single faction in the fandom would be disappointed, somewhat. Technically, guys, Reylo has won. Finnrose has won. Reywalker and Rey Solo have been buried for good. But of course, the execution isn’t perfect, or it isn’t what we expected. And as some other people have said, it’s basically the ideas of an entire community of people versus one man, who wrote his script when TFA hadn’t even hit the theaters yet.

Also… I’ll be honest here (and note that this is VERY, VERY personal): I don’t get the hype. Sure, the movie was decent, but apart from having Luke die, there was nothing shocking or groundbreaking in the movie. The only thing that was controversial was the reveal that Luke made an attempt on Ben’s life, and that’s it. I can’t figure out for the life of me why Daisy Ridley was so worried about how Rey would be received, apart from perhaps the complaint that she dared to have potentially dirty thoughts about the bad boy. Whatever new Force lore we got was “crazy” sith we never saw in movies but isn’t that great if you’ve played both KOTOR games.

The only “new” thing was the Force Bond, and the Reylo scenes just went by really quickly and were cut by overly long Resistance scenes. Ugh.

If they’re keeping the Force lore for IX (though I’m not putting out much hope for that, at this point), I can’t believe they thought giving that task to people like Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly was a good idea.

I’m gonna say one thing, though: I really, REALLY can’t wait to hear Rian Johnson’s commentary on the movie now that it’s come out, because to determine whether TLJ is really a work of genius or not, it’s going to depend on the following:

Basically… when I came out of the movie, I was furious. I was furious not because some of my headcanons were crushed, because I fully expected that to happen, but because of Kylo Ren.

Yep, that stupid asshole.

I was furious because everyone in the movie acted like an idiot. Everyone, except him, Rose, and Holdo. Rose and Holdo weren’t idiots because they’re flawless, Rose because her heart goes to those who are weaker or more miserable than she is, and thanks to her sister’s example, she knows what self-sacrifice is; Holdo, because she cares for her people as a leader, and she’s willing to sacrifice herself to save them all.

Kylo was by far the most pragmatic person in the entire movie. And that’s saying something, because he was such a big freaking Galactic Idiot at times.

I was furious, because I felt cheated. I was furious because I was left with the impression that I should be cheering for the Resistance, but I didn’t feel like it at all. I felt like yelling at Luke, at Leia, at Rey, at Poe – EVERYONE.

And who was I rooting for in the end? The beautiful, awful mess that was Kylo Ren.

If I’m supposed to root for the Resistance, Rian, I don’t understand why Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm absolutely wanted to give you another trilogy to direct, apart from the reason that you seem like a really nice guy who’s easy to work with. And I say this as someone who has some massive respect for you as a person.

But if your intention was for me to be angry at the people who are supposed to be the heroes and have the villain as the most sympathetic character…

Congrats, Rian. You’re a fucken genius.

#BEFORE YOU SEND ME ANGRY MESSAGES/REBLOGS/SALT #WAIT FOR THE REST TO COME OUT #star wars #the last jedi spoilers #tlj spoilers #rants and reviews #reylo #just in case

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ohthatbunnygirl · 7 years

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Engines can be Rose (part 4)

An art school AU Reylo Drabble

______________________________

It was Lisztomania.

Well, not exactly the eighteen-forties fan-frenzied response to classical composer Franz Liszt, but the Phoenix song of the same name was certainly causing a present day scene. Walls and bodies shook in the living room, people screeched along with the lyrics at the top of their lungs, and arms flailed as intoxication ruled the night. Up against a wall, a far less enthused Rey clutched onto a cup of something she’d never drink. Desperately scanning the dancefloor for an escape route, her face took on the appearance of Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ as she took a brave step forward. Horror for Rey was feeling a sweaty wet arm on her sweaty wet arm. That meeting of moisture made her want to wring old Liszt’s dead ass, and Rey thought she’d reached the end of her wits until when a shoulder bumped into her spine.

“Sorrrrrry!”

A slurred stranger’s apology didn’t count for much when sugary punch seeped between Rey’s toes. She shuddered with revulsion, but Rey miraculously refrained from flicking the drunkard off. It wasn’t anybody else’s fault that she felt awkward and out of place, but once “soiled by rum punch” was added to the list of reasons why she hated the party, Rey decided to call it a night. It wasn’t her scene at all, she couldn’t stop thinking about her art project deadline anyway, and if anybody met the girl’s gaze they would have assumed that the only possible explanation for her attendance in the first place was likely trickery.

In truth, she’d been bribed - and not even with money. No, Rey had been bribed with pizza- and not even with good pizza.

Four, eighty-cent frozen pizzas in exchange for accompanying her friend Poe to the party so he wouldn’t be alone was the deal once considered too tempting to turn down. Sadly, this wasn’t the first time Rey had made a bad bargain on cheap pizza. Hell, it wasn’t even the first time that she’d been lured with pizza by Poe that month, but there was the bonus that night of getting to pat herself on the back for being a selfless best friend who cheaply fed herself too. It was basic broke ass college economics that led to Rey entering a three bedroom apartment party, but the minute they’d stepped into the chaos Poe had predictably swept away into a sea of loud greetings as Rey longed to bash her head on the rocks.

Every damn time.

After an hour of accidental shoving around a dancefloor, Rey weaved through the crowd. Pretending to dance in order to push past sweaty bodies, she slid along a wall. It took three songs to make her slippery way, but one darn good eel impersonation later she’d reached the hallway. Dabbing off her cheeks with a dress sleeve, she deeply inhaled. She tasted sweet freedom in the air mixed with a hint of nag champa incense, but her buddy Poe was nowhere to be found. Positive that her friend was likely charming the literal pants off of his crush, Rey inched closer to the front door. She was almost home free until she picked up on the faintest whine coming from behind the nearest bedroom. Much like Rey knew that she was caked in at least four people’s sweat, she also immediately recognized that that particular noise could only come from something cuddly with a nose squishy from inbreeding.

That was the noise of something so spectacular that the normally shy girl threw open a door to a room that she had no business wandering into.

“Oh. My. God.”

Both of Rey’s hands fluttered up to her mouth as she gasped in delight. Bouncing on her toes, she loudly squealed as an adorable roly-poly puppy snorted up at her. The jumpy fawn-colored French bulldog joyfully pawing at her ankles while snorty-whining as Rey could not even….she just could not even.

“Look at you!” Releasing a whine of her own, Rey picked him up. “Oooooh my god, you are the best thing in the world.”

Forgetting that she’d barged into somebody’s room, Rey sunk down onto the corner of the mattress resting on the floor. Lying on her side, she allowed the full on puppy attack to commence. A fluff invasion was thoroughly welcome after her crap night, and Rey swore that each little cheek lick was worth all the cheap pizzas in the world. Heck, each puppy breath snort was well worth all the flaky friends too.

“Who do you belong to?” she cooed at the little tub of velvety butter, scratching around his ears. “Who could leave you for even one minute alone?”

The question was meant to be rhetorical, but Rey had her answer when the door flew open.

“Be right back, just gotta throw down my bag-” a booming excited voice called out before his laughter died. “Uhhh, Rey?”

No, no, no, no, no.

Standing frozen in the doorway, her shocked TA gawked at her.

“There was a dog,” Rey rapidly explained, scrambling to sit up as the pup in question padded over to snort all over Kylo. “I-I heard it…he was whimpering-”

“You’re in my room,” Kylo cut her off, unconsciously scratching at the scruff along his jaw as his eyes widened. “You’re in my room…on my bed.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know that you lived here.”

“Well, I do.”

Sinking into a thickening discomfort on top of Kylo’s comforter, Rey winced. The flustered girl felt smaller by the second as he continued staring at her with a dazed expression, and poor Rey rushed into a bad case of the rambles, “It’s just that my friend Poe was invited by this guy Finn who works at the coffee shop we go to. Poe didn’t want to come here alone in case it turned out that Finn wasn’t single -even though Poe’s pretty sure that a topped off coffee is an invitation for a blowjob. But anyways, some pizza propositioning was involved in getting me here, and then the puppy made me stay…”

Great talk, Rey.

Too mortified to meet his gaze any longer, Rey stared down at the mattress she was sitting on. The black sheets were rumpled from recent use, there were pillows on the ground, and Rey’s lips turned down into her own confused frown as she took in more and more of her surroundings. The room was stark. There were exactly zero pops of personality aside from a red painting on the wall, there was no clutter, and Rey would never have guessed that a talented artist could inhabit some place so utterly lacking in passion, so militaristic. To be fair, Rey didn’t know what she would have expected. She’d never given Kylo’s life outside the classroom much thought, but when she didn’t recognize a glimmer of the Kylo she’d obsessed over it hit her that she didn’t know him at all.

He was absolutely altogether foreign to her.

Rey didn’t know what band posters she’d expected, or what awards he might have framed. She couldn’t guess the author of one single book on his bookshelf, and with each swallow of bittersweet clarity, her stomach turned. Feeling foolish, feeling naive, and more than ever feeling like a little girl with an out of her depth crush.

Cringing, Rey moved to get up when his voice stopped her. “So you met Ramen?”

“Who?”

“The puppy,” Kylo answered, scooping up the yipping animal for a cuddle so brief that Rey almost missed it. Sitting beside her on the mattress, Kylo continued petting Ramen while casually explaining, “I’ve actually only had him for a couple months, but he’s a pretty cool dude.”

“He’s awfully cute.”

“I think so too! Yeah, my ex-girlfriend’s family breeds French bulldogs for competitions. The pedigree is apparently strong with this family, and every puppy in his litter went for nine thousand dollars.“ Cupping the puppy’s ears, Kylo whispered, “Then some elitist twat suggested that Ramen’s walk wasn’t up to standards, and when I defended his perfectly fine trot, my ex’s mom gave him to me for free.”

Rey’s jaw dropped. “You own a nine thousand dollar dog, but your mattress is on the floor?”

“Yep.”

“And you named your nine thousand dollar dog, Ramen?”

“Yep,” Kylo answered back with a grin so wide that it crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Ramen was the food that basically kept me alive freshmen year. So what better name for something else I love?”

Not about to argue with sound logic, Rey gave Ramen’s humongous ears some soft tugs. Purring at him, “And here I thought you were just adorable, but little did I know that you’re pet royalty too.”

As the puppy took an ungraceful leap off the bed, Kylo laughed. “He’s the fanciest one in the flat.”

“Well, your room is-”

“Boring.” Kylo finished for her, rolling his eyes. “Whatever you were going to say the honest answer is that it’s boring.”

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Something nicer then?”

“Probably,” Rey carefully considered her answered while absently leaning in closer to Kylo. ”My building on the outside honestly looks like scrap metal decided to get together in the nineteen-seventies. I don’t have much room to talk when it comes to running a place down, and I’ve always thought that you do what you can with what you have. At least the room is roomy.”

Kylo’s lips quirked to the side. “The room is roomy?”

“I meant large.”

“Yes, quite boring and large,” Kylo added with an over the top head bob. “Glad we can be honest now about it.”

“Boy you enjoy tearing it down, don’t you?”

“No, I just call a spade a spade,” Kylo shrugged, pushing his hair back behind his ears without a trace of agitation. “Honestly, my money doesn’t go into the room because any spare funds I have immediately get funneled back into my education or my art supplies. I’m too busy to worry about aesthetics inside a place I’m barely at, and I’m practical about where I spend my time- and who I spend it with. If it’s an option between taking a girl out on a date with forty bucks or buying a fancier IKEA tv stand, then I’m going to choose the girl every time. ”

To avoid the torture of hearing anything further about Kylo’s dates with other girls, Rey said the first thing that sprung to mind. Taking charge of the conversation while suspiciously eyeing his shiny black boots, “Hmm, you never struck me as all that poor.”

“I didn’t use to be.”

“You still don’t look it now.”

“Thanks,” Kylo’s gravelly voice rolled into a chuckle. “It’s nice to hear that the mostly all black ensembles I rock are doing me some covert social status favors after my fall from grace.”

“What happened?”

“Ah, that’s a good story,” Kylo sighed, his broody expression falling back in place. ”Pretty much everything about my current lack of funds has to do with a marvelous double whammy school screw over. Back when I was an undergrad, the Financial Aid office claimed that my parents made too much money for me to qualify for help. That made sense, but then after my parents cut me off after a political disagreement, I still couldn’t receive assistance.“

Rising up from the bed, Kylo placed a drowsy looking Ramen in a kennel in the corner of the room. Going through the motions of something nurturing even as the muscles along his spine tightened with tension. Back conveniently turned away as he explained, “Oddly enough, the school doesn’t exactly accept pictures of a heated up Thanksgiving Day frozen food meal as definitive proof that you’re financially screwed at eighteen. So all of the sudden, while I was taking on a sixteen-hour course load I had to simultaneously work two jobs just to afford my books, my tuition, and this apartment shared with a guy I met on Craigslist - who thankfully was not much for murdering. ”

“Wow, school’s pretty expensive here without any grants.”

“Indeed,” Kylo agreed. Sitting back down again beside Rey, he was unable to fight back the bitterness in his laugh. “There’s a reason the last gallery collection I showed was titled ‘Daddy Issues’ “

Before Rey could talk herself out of it, she took his hand in hers. Squeezing sympathetically, offering whatever comfort her small fingers could while dwarfed by his massive hand. The acrylic paint chips underneath her nails stood out so vibrantly against his skin -the quirky boldness so very her- and Kylo’s smile softened.

“You’re sweet.”

Dragging her teeth along her lower lip, Rey shook her head.

“Not entirely…”

A loud thump sounded from outside the door. Instantly, the illusion of intimacy dissolved away from them when they shifted apart from one another, hands releasing. Staring at the widened gap between them, Rey was struck with the ugly reminder that a party raged outside. Up until that moment, she’d plum forgot that her handsome crush hadn’t actually invited her to his room for an intimate chat. It wasn’t a date. They weren’t even friends. No, she’d barged her way into his life, and on the off chance that he was only humoring her, Rey gave him an out.

Stammering out, “Sorry again for slipping into your room.”

“Well, I’m not exactly kicking you out am I?” Kylo said, shifting his piercing gaze back to her.

“No, guess not,” Rey swallowed hard, chest rising and falling without hope of a steadying breath when he looked at her like every step of his day had been geared towards having her with him in his bed.

Before the girl could trip over her own nerves again, Kylo intertwined his ink-stained fingers with hers again. An innocent enough hand squeeze kept her beside him on the bed as her heart fluttered up into her throat. Oxygen and excuses blocked off, feeling temporarily safe from embarrassing herself with words that would have proven useless after he proceeded to steal away her breath.

“I should probably say something clever now,” he told her, “but I can’t stop staring at your lips.”

For a few stuttered heart beats, Rey was sure that she’d heard Kylo wrong until his thumb brushing against her knee proved otherwise. It was no daydream. There was nothing more real than those small maddening circles grazing against her skin as he shamelessly admitted,

“I actually think about them a lot.”

“Oh,” Rey exhaled.

Shifting his gaze from her eyes to her mouth and back again, Kylo continued, “I keep thinking about…”

“What?” Rey whispered.

“Thinking about how sweet you’d taste.”

#reylo #kylo ren #2 more drabbles left #warm thoughts for a cold night

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marybeatriceofmodena · 7 years

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/ slams fist on the table/ TELL ME ABOUT YOUR PREDICTIONS FOR HOW REYLO IS GONNA GO DOWN

Aw, thank you for that question! *cracks knuckles*

AND JEEZ I WROTE A FUCKING NOVEL ROFL

To be honest, I have trouble separating my general TLJ speculation from my Reylo speculation, but I think that’s mainly because I think Rey and Kylo are going to spend a lot of time together in the next film.

Basically, I’m pretty sure Rey and Luke won’t get along very well. I even think Luke might downright refuse to train her. It doesn’t help that we got pretty solid evidence that Rey is not exactly good Jedi material. It’ll depend on what kind of Jedi Luke is, but again, Rey is anything but all calm and the “no attachments” kind of person. (Like, not gonna lie, I read the Ahsoka novel lately, and one thing that struck me was how rigid the “no attachments” rule was, and how Ahsoka suffered from it even if she didn’t admit it out loud. All I could think was: “Nope. Rey is not a Jedi, unless she undergoes some serious character change. And that wouldn’t be positive character change AT ALL.)

I think Luke’s possible refusal to train Rey might also come from the fact she’s a lot more like Ben/Kylo than she (and the audience) believe. It’s not going to help that I’m pretty sure Rey is going to be an eager puppy around Luke, at least at the beginning. Remember that part where she bypasses the compressor and looks all happy about it, and Han doesn’t give her the credit she thinks she deserves and gets all crestfallen? I mean, she clearly already saw him as a father figure at that moment (even if she knew Han for, like, ten minutes), and she was pretty desperate for his approval. I’m ready to bet she’s going to go after Luke as a replacement father figure, which is not the healthiest thing to do, but at same time, considering Rey’s background, it’s not surprising (and it makes her situation pretty tragic, come to think of it). Luke pushing her away is REALLY going to hurt, methinks.

Rey will probably learn something about Kylo’s backstory at some point, that will make him more sympathetic to her eyes. I don’t know how. It could be a vision or something, but we have to keep in mind that MSW rumors had it that just before Kylo shows up on Ahch-To, Luke wants Rey to kill Kylo and she doesn’t want to. Make of that what you will, but I think it would take something BIG for Rey to refuse to end Kylo’s life, because she ain’t a sweet little peach. I think it might have something to do with Kylo/Ben’s backstory with Luke. I mean, I’m pretty sure TLJ will be the answer to whatever question we might have had on the current Skywalker family drama.

I think Kylo is going to come on Ahch-To probably at the end of the first act or in the middle of the film, max. Otherwise, if he comes at the climax like (fake) rumors seem to claim, Rey is going to spend the entire film stuck with Luke on a desert island, and she’s supposed to be the heroine. Booooring. (Plus, Adam Driver spent a lot of time filming in Ireland, so I don’t think Kylo is going to show up on Ahch-To just for one scene at the end.)

As for Kylo’s mental state when he shows up… I don’t know. I’m pretty sure the trailers are going to show him off as a Big Bad, but there are two scenarios: either Snoke managed to convince him to have his revenge on Rey, and he’ll come on Ahch-To with his stupid-ass Vader cape flappin’ in the wind, and he’ll start dueling Rey and realize he just can’t bring himself to harm her, and then Rey drops the bomb about whatever she knows about his past. That just renders him helpless. But the other scenario is that maybe Snoke’s convincing just didn’t work this time, because he’s having way too many doubts, and while he keeps on obeying the Supreme Leader, he goes straight to attacking Rey when he arrives on Ahch-To just to pull off a tough show in front of the Knights of Ren (because no, I have a feeling they ain’t Kylo’s buddies).

As for the rumors of Rey falling from a cliff into the water… I don’t know. It could happen (well it would just be a good excuse to see Dangerous Dreamboat without his shirt, and I wouldn’t be complaining, but hey.)

And sure, have Luke take down the KoR in the meantime. I admit they’d kind of be in the way (I mean, they’re probably just there to look cool. *eyeroll*).

From there… so we have Rey who knows thanks to backstory that things aren’t quite what they seem with Kylo, even if she still feels confused towards him at best, and Kylo is still all like “The Supreme Leader is wise” while on the inside he’s screaming “WHAT THE FUUUUUCK”, and then TEENAGE HORMONES KICK IN, AND FROM THAT MOMENT, AFTER DEALING WITH THE HELL THAT WAS HAN AND LEIA, LUKE SKYWALKER IS FUCKING DOOMED

Okay, no, for real. I’ll just point out one little thing: in TFA, Snoke and Hux seem to have no problem with the map getting destroyed or Ahch-To getting blown up. What’s important is that Luke must not reach Leia. Kylo… seems to have another purpose entirely. He *wants* the map, so I think there’s something on Ahch-To (which is home to the first Jedi Temple) which he wants. Not to mention that I’m pretty sure him falling to the DS and joining Snoke isn’t just for UNLIMITED POWAH. I also think that whatever treasure is on Ahch-To is hard to access. I mean, it doesn’t seem as if Luke managed to access it. So methinks it takes two to access the Jedi Temple. (starts humming “It Takes Two” from Into the Woods)

All right, considering Raiders of the Lost Ark is a big inspo for Rey and Kylo’s plot, according to Rian Johnson… I think we’re going to have Kylo coaxing Rey into giving him the headpiece for the staff of Ra helping him access whatever’s in the temple. Luke… will not be pleased. But I think at that point, Rey will have had more than her share of Luke and will side with Kylo.

I MEAN WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU PUT AN 30-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN IMPERIAL ARCHIVES NERD AND A CUTE SCAVENGER ON A DESERT ISLAND CONTAINING AN OLD JEDI TEMPLE, C’MON RIAN

Gimme some fun Jedi Temple exploring action. And Kylo attempting to impress Rey with his AMAZING knowledge. And Hanleia levels of bantering.

I think it would be a good opportunity for the movie to become more introspective without slowing down the action too much. Rey has issues, and so does Kylo, and I think it’d be a good moment for them to realize that they’re not so different, and that families aren’t the sugar-coated vision Rey used to have of them.

And then… let’s say the FO arrives on Ahch-To because Snoke realizes Kylo is planning to elope with Rey slipping out of his control. I JUST WANT A SCENE LIKE THIS M’KAY.

youtube

Basically, just replace Indy with Kylo, Marion with Rey, and Belloq with Hux (?).

Then… I could see the movie’s climax taking place on Ahch-To, and Finn’s Resistance plot coming to meet Rey’s there. Basically, the Resistance could get worried of not getting any news from Luke and could head to Ahch-To and start panicking when they see the FO presence there, or maybe get info thanks to intel that the FO is heading straight to Luke. Meanwhile, Rey and Kylo would try to escape, and get caught.

Not gonna lie, I think Kylo is going to get the Skywalker Special (i.e. getting his hand chopped off). I also think Rey is going to tap in the Dark Side at the end of the movie, and I could see a scenario where she gets so scared and angry she unleashes a wave of pure DS power and kills every enemy around her (let’s say Hux too, because you know, it would permit Rey to tap in the DS and do a kill that could easily be forgiven in the eyes of the GA. Plus, that ginger space Nazi is deaaaad.) I could also see that happening when Finn is around? I think Rey and Finn will meet again in the third act of the film, but in not so good circumstances, and that would make that kind of situation work. Anywho, Rey will probably be devastated, and I think the movie is going to end with her and Kylo finally managing to escape and going rogue.

I think there will be a time jump between VIII and IX (because there seems to be something happening whenever you’re 23 in SW, and Rey is going to be 19 by the time of TLJ). I think travelling together will help both Rey and Kylo to see things from another perspective, and just… take a break from all this? If that makes any sense? (Okay, I’m kind of going quick because this post is way too long already, lol)

I also think Reylo will become two-sided at the very end of TLJ. Before that would be too rushed imo, and for it taking place in IX… I admit I don’t really see Colin Trevorrow pulling it off. Plus, if they spend some time on their own, it might help them find a bit more stability with themselves and all that jazz (even if I think it’ll just be the beginning of Rey’s problems…)

So yeah. Those are pretty much my predictions - or rather wishful thinking, lol. I’m pretty sure the ending is super not clear because I kind of rushed to finish this rant, but hopefully, it’ll give you a good idea. ;)

Send me a SW-related question.

#star wars #rey #kylo ren #reylo #rants and reviews #long post for ts #I'M SORRY #ENJOY MY WISHFUL THINKING #cobwebbing

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