I had 4000 words in me about the new Space Fight and I still don't know how I feel!

[spindizzy]

OKAY, I have been to see the new space fight movie, and... It was a midnight showing on a school night, so this might not be coherent and/or decisive in its opinions, but I wanted to get my initial thoughts down while it's still fresh. Behind a cut for spoilers, obviously. I will say that we went to the marathon that Cineworld were doing, and watching TFA again just reminded me how GOOD it was, and how much of my disappointment in TLJ was it not carrying that over. ANYWAY: lifting rocks with your space magic time!

• I don't know if I can say that I liked it, but equally I can't say that I hated it? It's possible that I'm not capable of strong emotional responses on three hours sleep, but I feel kinda... "Okay, cool, I've seen that and can now partake in the popular discourse like a real person."


• They seem to have done that thing Age of Ultron did to Iron Man 3, where it's not that they've retconned it out of existence, but they've been very selective in what they're willing to ackowledge.


• They sidelined Rose! Like, seriously, she was one of the four main characters of The Last Jedi, and they just... Shunt her to one side while everyone else is doing adventures? Goddamn C-3PO had more lines than her, because what is justice! She ends the last film badly injured and trying to pass along an important lesson about not sacrificing yourself pointlessly, and in this one she just... Doesn't really get any scenes. Surely the hobbit guy could have been replaced with Rose for most purposes, considering he's talking about the tech for most of it? And surely a character who made a SPECIFIC POINT about not fighting what you hate but saving what you love... Would have opinions about Finn and Jenna sacrificing themselves, instead of just walking away? (Someone pointed out that side-lining Rose is rewarding the people who showered Kelly Marie Tran in racist abuse, and IT'S TRUE.)


• They put Kylo Ren back in his mask! Is it... Commentary? Like "In TFA, he took the mask off to prove that he didn't need it to be scary/hide him while he killed someone. In TLJ, he took it off and destroyed it because he was taunted, as a way to show that he's not in control of himself or his emotions. In TRS, he put it back on..." And then I get stuck. Is it supposed to be a clear demarcation between when he's Kylo Ren and when he's Ben Solo? Is it to show that he's still not in control of his emotions, and the only way he can manage that is to hide them? Is it just that Adam Driver is expensive now and costumes that just need a voice over are cheap?


• (Also, on a similar note, I'm irrationally peeved that Finn and Poe got to have new looks for this, and Rey went back to her old one. Like, I get that it's a character choice and her outfits are iconic, but she went from experimenting with her looks now that she's not trying to be recognisable for her family... Back to the outfit she wore in TFA, but cleaner...? But with a hood? It's not even that I don't like her outfit, I just think that sticking her in all white and making most of her scenes with Kylo Ren was a BIT on the nose. And it feels like its taking the character growth that came with finally letting go of the idea that her parents were coming back for her to shove her back into her old clothes.)


• ... Seriously, if the directors/script writers didn't want the collaborative stuff that comes with working in a shared world, why are they working on Star Wars?


• Wasn't the whole point of the latest trilogy to get away from the kinda skeevy "all of the strongest magic powers are concentrated in one bloodline" thing? Because Rey didn't have to be nobody from nowhere, but the fact that she WAS and still managed to be powerful and talented and respected was important! Making her Palpatine's granddaughter feels cheap, and feels like a deliberate step backwards.
  
  • Was the change because her parents abandoned her? Did someone decide that her family being disappointing and cruel was too much? Was that where they drew the line?
  
  
  • I am going to yell about Watsonian Vs Doylist expectations here: the audience (well, a certain subset of the audience, not all of us, certainly no one I knew) were the ones with the expectation that Rey's parents would be what made her special. Rey herself didn't have that; she had the hope that maybe someone would come back for her. That was why Finn's arc intersected with her's so well in TFA! The man who wants to run CAME BACK for her! And the reversal in TLJ worked because she wasn't the one who waited for someone who might never come! And when Kylo Ren throws her parentage in her face, she's still valuable and important for who she is! Making her a descendant of Palpatine doesn't add anything to her arc from a Doylist perspective, because her arc has been closed satisfactorially, and doesn't add anything from a Watsonian perspective because there's nothing there for emotions to latch onto. Like, both she and Kylo Ren apparently lied to her about who her family was? Maybe? What is going on here.


• All of the previous villains (Hux, Kylo Ren), got shoved to one side to make way for even older villains. Like... I don't know. It's not necessarily anti-climactic, but it doesn't have as much emotional weight, to me? Like, if we're supposed to buy that there's a puppet master pulling all of the strings for an entire trilogy, I want there to be something for me to go "OH, oh in retrospect that makes sense!" and there's nothing that I can think of. Like, I can be happy that the war is won and ambivalent about who it was won against, I guess? It just feels like the villain changed from "It's not neo-nazism if I wear a suit" to "ok boomer" without stopping to pass go or collect £200 and real talk: it can be both!


• But seriously, I think it undercut its own dramatic tension, because the people I cared about getting crushed weren't the antagonists anymore, so the victory feels kinda hollow? Maybe?


• NO, WAIT, I THINK I CAN EXPLAIN THIS, I THINK I'VE SOLVED WHY THIS DOESN'T WORK FOR ME. It's the same thing as the bloodline thing! The first two parts of this trilogy explicitly set up that you didn't have to be from a special family to be a hero, and that you can't destroy evil by killing one person because someone else will step up to fill the gap. This movie goes "No, if you're special it's because you were designated special, and all evil can be traced back to one specific person, all you need to do is find them." It's completely contradicting its own story arcs! That's what's wrong! That's why Rose and Poe and Finn and the escaped stormtroopers had to be shoved to one side! Because that's not the point this film is making!


• ANYWAY.


• ALL OF THAT TO ONE SIDE.


• ACTUAL REACTION SHOT.


• Me at the end of TLJ: Is it just me, or did they wrap up all of their story arcs? What are they going to do with a sequel when they only have the main plot to carry through?
  Me in TRS: OH, they're gonna do SOME BULLSHIT.


• I saw someone on twitter (I THINK it was Jeannette Ng?) say that they thought that Leia's death would have had more weight if it had been covered in the opening crawl, and the movie had people just dealing with that grief. My immediate reaction was "But it wouldn't make sense to put something as hugely character-motivating and universe-changing as that in the opening crawl!" And then I remembered that the actual opening crawl went "Yo, Emperor Palpatine is back and we don't need to put any build-up of that into any previous movies, because we're just gonna tell you that's how it works and you have to accept that it's our premise!"


• The opening fights are very cool, but a) lack the feral desperation it takes to get me interested in Kylo Ren, and b) ... Have less weight because I don't know who these people are or why Emperor Palpatine is somehow back or why I should care?


• Like, the tube full of half-grown Snokes: creepy! The emperor being as far as I can tell a torso on a mechanical arm: creepy! The emperor menacingly explaining that he's been behind everything all along: no! Not creepy, not interesting! It's (possiby literally) a deus ex machina!


• Oh hey, apparently THEY'RE the Knights of Ren! I thought the red people who died in the back-to-back badasses scene were the Knights of Ren?


• I love Finn and Poe running around doing missions, that makes me happy! I'm assuming that Poe's demotion has been rescinded, and EVERYONE is doing missions because the Rebellion is currently forty people and a shoe-lace?


• At some point I am going to have to find a straight person who isn't in fandom (it's probably going to be Lex) and ask them what the heterosexual explanation for Poe is. ... I meant a specific thing with that, but you know what? Yes, someone please explain Poe Dameron. Especially please explain how anyone looked at him and decided that he wasn't bi, because *gestures at this franchise* And then explain to me every "Oh, you mean when Poe's not here?" because sir.


• (Twitter assures me that every interview Oscar Isaacs has given about TRS has involved him being very "Just let Poe Dameron be bi," but I'm a little wary of checking in case I'm wrong.)


• I like this version of Poe better than the one in TLJ, because he feels more like the guy we met in TFA, and the guy the fanbase decided he was: not a douche!


• I still don't know why Rey keeps using a lightsaber when they consistently show her as being more comfortable with a staff. Darth Vader's lightsaber was destroyed! They could have had her build LITERALLY ANYTHING for herself! But no.


• Since when did being a Jedi make you the Avatar? Because sure, Force Ghosts, but I don't think its been mentioned before that part of your Jedi training is "And then every other Jedi who came before moves into your head."


• ... Since when was Rey being a Jedi actually being the plan?! I thought the whole point of the prequel trilogy and TLJ was that the Jedi Order was fundamentally flawed and caused more problems than it solved! That the best thing to do was to abandon the Jedi Order and build something new! Was that not what we were doing? Was that not the plan?


• Poe and Rey being angry divorced parents over BB-8 is kinda fun and mostly not what I expected of their relationship. But "You dropped a tree on him?!" and "You can't lightspeed-skip the Falcon!" are both excellent. (I did like the lightspeed-skipping the Falcon.)


• ... This movie is not structured like the characters are on a deadline, so did I make up that they only had sixteen hours to save the galaxy? Was that not the plot? Did they actually have all the time they needed to run from planet to planet and the timer was an artificial thing I added?


• WHY DOES EVERY SINGLE THING IN THIS TRILOGY HAVE PLANET-BUSTER TECH, OH MY GOD.


• SERIOUSLY WHY DOES THE HOBBIT DUDE GET MORE LINES THAN FUCKING ROSE, SHE DESERVED BETTER THAN THAT.


• ... Didn't the Sith have a planet? Wasn't that just like a KNOWN THING? And seriously, if Luke had been keeping notes on the location of a Sith planet/the half-dead Emperor Palpatine, surely that could have been set up really easily in TLJ? Like, he goes onto the Falcon, you show him leaving the book before he takes the dice, done. Or, they're with the sacred texts, right? Show him taking that one off Rey. It's not HARD to set this shit up.


• Me as soon as the festival appears on screen: Well, all of those people are going to die.


• Kylo Ren being able to reach out and actually snatch stuff off Rey is a horrifying detail, which I hadn't seen coming despite all of the Force contact they'd had.


• AND YOU DON'T EVEN WARN THE FESTIVAL-GOERS THAT THE FIRST ORDER IS PROBABLY GOING TO SHOW UP AND RUIN EVERYTHING, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!


• LANDO WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING THERE?!


• "They fly now?!" "They fly now."


• I love that they don't tell us what Finn never told Rey, because that means it's ours. The fanbase has claimed that secret, and we are going to use it for everything from declarations of love (for her or someone else) to admitting that he likes pineapple on pizza.


• Oh hey, Force healing. Was that canon before? I feel like it should be, but I don't know if it actually was. But also Rey's clearly been keeping


• ... Kylo Ren walking out of his crashed ship like "Oh, I wanted to see you in person" is STILL STALKER TERRITORY OH MY GOD.


• I have a lot of feelings about Poe Dameron and I have no idea how to express them, but HIM AND FINN, OH MY GOD.


• REY TAKING DOWN A SPACE SHIP WITH ONE (1) LIGHTSABER IS REALLY FUCKING COOL THOUGH.


• When the Force Lightning happened, I assumed that they were going "So there is a middle path where you can get the Light Side telekinesis AND the Dark Side lightning, which will be great when you forge your own path!" and fucking MORE FOOL ME.


• I feel like the emotional beats aren't quite paced right? Like, we go from "Oh my god, I killed Chewie, I did that" to "It's cool, he's fine," in about five minutes (for the audience, not the characters), and C-3PO loses his memory and gets it back like two scenes later? ... Wut.


• (I did get the joke about R2-D2 being the only droid in Star Wars who doesn't get their memory erased on a regular basis though!)


• ANAKIN SKYWALKER YOU LITERALLY WERE A SITH, WHY DID YOU PROGRAM YOUR LANGUAGE DROID NOT TO TRANSLATE SITH?!


• The whole "You were a spice runner?" "You were a stormtrooper," "You were spice runner?" "You were a scavenger," thing was much funnier before kaytaylorrea pointed out that spice was produced in wookie death camps. I consulted with Chris, who is my friend who memorised wookiepedia, and he says that Poe Dameron has a bunch of skeevy cover identities, so if we want to headcanon it as "He wasn't, but that was his cover identity," then we have plausible basis for it.


• I'm kinda pleased that Zorii was a female character who had an Entanglement with Poe in backstory and we never saw her whole face. Respect.


• (POE DAMERON IS A SPACE BISEXUAL AND IF ANYONE WANTS TO FIGHT ME ABOUT THIS THEN WE CAN FUCKING GO.)


• As soon as the Badge That Gets You In And Out of Anywhere appeared I knew what was going to happen and I was right.


• "You're relieved that we're here." "... You think she ever does this to us?"


• Kylo Ren and Rey's fight and the way it's revealed that she's in Kylo Ren's room was pretty cool, although I imagine anyone who saw Kylo Ren flailing his lightsaber around and not actually taking out an entire wall is going to be really confused. ... Actually, that's an interesting thing, we don't see him absolutely LOSE HIS SHIT in TRS, do we? Which is a bit baffling considering the entire last quarter of TLJ was "Kylo Ren LOSES HIS SHIT ON AN INTERPLANETERY LEVEL."


• Wow, Hux did something interesting! That brings him up to TWO things. ... Don't @ me, "spoiled pouty facist" is dramatic but not interesting. I'm counting his first one as "Sees Kylo Ren unconscious and goes for his blaster," and "Being a spy for the Resistance" is the second. I'll be honest: I thought the spy might have been Kylo Ren, because I straight up forgot that Hux existed. But god, he's the First Order's military leader, and his entire motivation for betraying them is "I don't want you to win. I just want Kylo Ren to lose." ... I almost respect Star Wars for how clear it makes Hux being a spoiled child with the power to destroy planets. Almost. Also HOW CONFIDENT DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO PLOT AGAINST A GUY WHO CAN LITERALLY READ MINDS?!


• I can't believe that the movie went "Okay, yes, Finn IS a defected stormtrooper, but what if he just shoots all of the stormtroopers he meets and only gets half a scene with the OTHER DEFECTED STORMTROOPERS HE JUST LEARNED EXISTED.
  
  • Like, real talk, you all know I avoid promo materials for blockbusters, right? From the fact that Jenna crossed my feeds anyway, I just assumed that she was going to join the main cast the same way Rose did! AND INSTEAD WE GET NEITHER OF THEM.
  
  
  • Also, Finn just casually shooting Stormtroopers like it's nothing still hits me weirdly, because in TFA and TLJ, the times he's in direct conflict with stormtroopers MATTER. They're fought like very personal things! And here they're just... Cannon fodder. Don't matter to him at all. I DON'T THINK THAT COUNTS AS GROWTH, OKAY.
  
  
  • The way that the film attributes all of the stormtroopers laying down their weapons to "a Force" sure does invalidate the agency and moral choices of every ex-stormtrooper in that scene! I'm hoping that by "a force" it meant "the recognition of shared humanity" because otherwise I'm gonna FLIP MY SHIT.
  
  
  • ... But seriously you could have done SO MUCH with Finn discovering that he wasn't the first one to defect, or the only one to defect, and it got shoved to one side for... What.


• REY YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WATER EXISTED TWO MONTHS AGO, WHAT ARE DOING?!


• Ohhhhhhhhhhh, Sith!Rey was supposed to be FORESHADOWING. Sure. Okay. Not sure I buy it, but sure.


• Okay. Right. The Leia and Kylo Ren thing.
  
  • I think they did a fairly good job of writing Leia out considering they had to ditch her original plotline and bodge something together with old footage and body doubles. I don't know how I feel about the actual way they did it, because Leia deserved to live to see the change she built, and she deserved something... More. More dramatic. More satisfying. More built into her arc. But I understand why they did it that way with the limitations that they had. But Dr General Princess Leia Organa would not go gentle into that good night. But.
  
  
  • On the other hand, the way they did it cut her arc off at the knees and just set fire to Kylo Ren's. Logic didn't sway him. Emotion didn't sway him. A struggle that has been a running thread through three movies gets resolved by one act of kindness, and his mother astral projecting her disappointment and hope to him again. It feels cheap. It feels lazy. It feels like there was an entire chunk of a character arc cut out, and it's disappointing.
  
  
  • Genuinely, it's written like Leia died to straight up EXORCISE the evil out of Kylo Ren and that is some fucking bullshit right there. YOU CANNOT LOVE THE EVIL OUT OF SOMEONE, REGARDLSS OF YOUR RELATION TO THEM.
  
  
  • Leia's body disintegrating as soon as Kylo Ren dies/redeems himself like that's what she was holding out for was some HORSESHIT.


• REY WHY ARE YOU FIXING HIM, YOU HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING THAT HIS POSITION IN THE FIRST ORDER HAS BEEN ELIMINATED AND THAT HE ISN'T GOING TO IMMEDIATELY USE THAT FIXED BODY TO TRY TO KILL EVERYONE YOU LOVE AGAIN.


• The recurring imagery of offering and taking hands feels like it should mean something considering how much of a thing it was between her and Finn, but also... That was a thing between her and Finn, what are you doing film.


• DID YOU MISS THE PART WHERE RUNNING TO THE ARSE END OF THE GALAXY DOESN'T WORK IN ANY WAY.


• Rey. Girl. I love you. How did you miss the BIG GLOWING GREEN CRYSTAL PRISM while you were building a bonfire strong enough to burn something designed to survive re-entry?


• Canon confirmation that Leia could take Luke in a fight no matter what skill they're using. Politics? Science? Subterfuge? Fist fight? Gun fight? Ancient space magic? SHE CAN CRUSH HIM.


• If Luke's ship has been underwater for as long as it looks, it should not be in a space-worthy condition, oh my god.


• Chewie's heart visibly breaking over Leia's death, noooooooooooooooo.


• Bye Space Mom. You did good.


• Poe telling Finn that he doesn't want to do this without him and he wants Finn to help him! *lies on the floor*


• Rey route-finding for everyone! Yay!


• Real talk, I had a moment of horrified confusion while I was writing this, because by my own stated logic and preferences I should be a Reylo shipper! The grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one! Phenominal cosmic powers! He would absolutely burn down the galaxy! But it's not my thing, and I can maybe figure out why, but I'm not sure it wouldn't be me trying to justify a careless nope to myself. Like... I think the reason I don't ship it could be:
  
  1. Maybe they did a very good job of setting Kylo Ren up as a fuckboi villain who doesn't deserve his inevitable redemption arc. Like, he has been party to AT LEAST two war crimes (... Is slaughtering civilians a war crime? I feel like it should be) even if he didn't participate himself, and we don't see him do anything to atone for that?
  
  
  2. Maybe I am still salty about the fact that Rey – who had her own arc in TFA, who was the woman that the entire galaxy was looking for, who was trying to find her own purpose and place to belong – gets shunted sideways into a "I'm sure he can be redeemed!" storyline for ???reasons??? ... No really, I don't remember the logic for why that becomes her storyline beyond that she's the Jedi in training and redeeming Sith is just what they DO for some reason.
  
  
  3. Maybe I have somehow accidentally become That Shipper and all het ships are inherently suspicious somehow, despite me being a quite content canon-shipper for most of my fandoms??????? (I really hope it's not this one.)
  
  
  4. So much of it isn't about her. It's about who she can lead Kylo Ren to, or what she can be used for, and I don't buy the jump from the end of TLJ where they've been non-consensually soul-bonded to this point where he finds out that someone wants her dead and he's just like "No seriously, do you want to conquer the galaxy with me?" ... I think when I ship characters who would literally burn the world down for each other, it's because it's specifically for that person, and their chosen person can call off that burning whenever they wanted, whereas Kylo Ren is just... Nihilistic bullshit.


• ... But seriously, someone running unarmed and unarmoured to save the one (1) human in the universe that they give a fuck about is catnip for me, and on the one hand I want that catnip and on the other Kylo Ren.


• What the fuck is even this scene with the Sith btw. Why does killing a Sith mean that you become the anti-avatar and why doesn't that work for Jedi? (Order 66 would have had VERY STRANGE repercussions.) Why does Emperor Torso have an auditorium of hooded figures (who are maybe clones?) to sit and chant for him? HOW DID HE EVEN END UP WITH A SON, OKAY, HE WAS AN EMPEROR WHO BELIEVES IN CLONING EVERYTHING, WHAT IN PARTICULAR MEANT THAT THIS PERSON COUNTED AS HIS SON AND WHY IS THERE LITERALLY NOTHING AS SET-UP FOR IT. LIKE, WHY GIVE A FUCK ABOUT LUKE IF YOU HAVE A SON THAT YOU CAN FORCE TO THE DARK SIDE. WHAT IS THIS BOLT-ON BUDGET PADMÉ SHIT.


• I am so mad that I am into Ben Solo charging to help Rey. If it had been after an actual redemption arc, then maybe! If it had been a character who was less evil, maybe! BUT NO.


• I know, I know, I need to rewatch the trilogy now that I know that Kylo Ren is supposed to get a redemption arc and be a love interest, but also uggggggggggggh.


• ... Seriously, my assumption was that Kylo Ren was going to kill Palpatine and Rey was going to kill him before the Sith ghosties got their foothold but apparently not!


• Rey putting the lightsaber behind her head and sending it away is a cool thing though!


• He draws the lightsaber, activates it, and just does this little fucking shrug like "Yeah, I know." I'M HERE FOR IT AND I'M ANNOYED THAT I'M HERE FOR IT.


• Whose lightsaber did he end up with? His mother's? Or his grandfather's? Because I could argue the symbology of it either way, but I want to know.


• LOOK AT THAT TEAM OF GOOD PEOPLE TRYING TO TAKE DOWN THE NEW BATCH OF PLANET BUSTERS, LOOK AT IT!


• Where is Pava, oh my god.


• THEY ARE TRYING SO HARD TO BUY TIME AND STOP THE SHIPS MOVING OUT TO DESTROY THE GALAXY AND NOOOOOOOO.


• Of COURSE Finn is on the ground-team with a ridiculous plan. OF COURSE.


• "Shut down their speeders!" "We can't, sir!" *Every ex-stormtrooper belts across the top of this spaceship on the back of their SPACE-BEASTIES*


• Waaaaaah I love Finn and Jenna, I want them to be family and I want there to be lots of stories about them and the other ex-stormtroopers building new lives!


• FINN AND JENNA DO NOT SACRIFICE YOURSELVES AND ALSO AS IF FUCKING ROSE WOULD LET THAT GO WHEN LAST MOVIE SHE LITERALLY RISKED HER OWN LIFE TO STOP FINN DOING THAT.


• Palpatine hoovering up their life-force is sure a thing, and I want to know how his torso was attached to that arm that he could just get up and walk away.


• FORCE BOLTING AN ENTIRE FLEET IS FUCKING CHEATING AND YOU KNOW IT.


• Again, Kylo Ren dragging his carcass out of a hell-pit to rescue Rey was something that would maybe work for me if things had been different! Like, if I was pretending that everything after the throne-room fight in TLJ wasn't happening as hard as the film-makers were, MAYBE I would be more cool with it, but as it is... Eh.


• Apparently the only way to not become the Avatar is to force the evil thing to kill itself. COOL.


• No word of a lie, as soon as I saw Kylo Ren shambling out of that pit I called that there would be kissing and that if there was kissing he was going to die, because Redemption Through Death is the only way to conclude that when you haven't done the work to set-up someone atoning in literally any other way. I guess I'm sad for Rey? But not sad for him.


• GO REBEL SUNSHINES! I don't think that the extra ships had as much of an impact as I wanted, because COME ON GUYS YOU COULD HAVE BEEN HELPING LITERALLY THIS ENTIRE TIME but okay, sure, fine, try not to judge that you're late because at least you're there.


• Me, seeing Rose helping a Rebel back into camp: Has fandom designated her Rose's girlfriend?


• EVERYONE HUGGING AT THE END THOUGH! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! YES, THIS IS ALL I WANTED FROM THIS TRILOGY, YES!


• This is going to be my definitive thoughts on Disney franchises going "Look, you can't have a queer main character, but there'll be canon gay moments!" I'm very happy that the blonde lady who does the talking for the Rebellion high command is queer and has a girlfriend, good for her, but also I don't know her name. I don't know who she is, I don't know what her arc is or what her story is, or anything about her except that she was in Admiral Holdo's confidence and was authorised to speak for Leia in TLJ. When we ask for – when we hope for – queer representation, we don't just want someone kissing in the background, although sure, that's definitely progress. We want main characters who are queer. We want characters who have arcs. We want characters who have fucking names. I didn't think that this was unreasonable, but fuck me I guess!


• LANDO OFFERING TO HELP JENNA FIND OUT WHO SHE IS AND WHERE SHE'S FROM, OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!


• Our party had Mild Conflict about the Tattooine scene, because splend mentioned that he would have been disappointed if they hadn't gone there at least once, and I'm just here like... But Luke hated that place and couldn't wait to leave? And I don't think Leia ever came here? So I don't understand why burying the light sabers here has more weight than literally any other planet in the system.


• PEOPLE WHO AREN'T IN FANDOM ARE ADORABLE because I was telling Lex that I ain't even mad about the Rey Skywalker thing because that's one of the three routes that fandom goes down and he had NO CLUE this was a thing!

So yeah, that was more examining of my own preferences and biases than I really expected for a film about glowing swords in space. I think that it had a lot of individual pieces that I liked in isolation, but not in combination? Or at least not in this combination with the build-up that this film has had. I'd be very interested in reading the original script, the one before they had to write Leia out, because it'd be interesting to see how much of this was built in and how much of it was as a result of having to cut Leia out almost entirely. I think I feel the same way as Lex did: I liked it less, but I enjoyed it more. The bits that were my thing were VERY my thing! But it's thematically opposed to everything that came before it, so... I can't honestly say I like it.