I was at the world premiere in LA on Monday. Had a great time. My Thoughts:

- George was not there - Red Flag #1.

- The vibe before and after was nothing like TFA or Rogue One. It had a brace for impact vibe to me.
- The movie seems like two movies in one, therefore it does not breath and seems choppy.

- I did not like TLJ. but it seemed more well-crafted editorially, not in terms of tone and pacing. TLJ was allowed to breath.
- In retrospect, TLJ had a better script, but was mis-directed. I would like to see what JJ could have done with TLJ script. TROS seems like a rushed script and a rushed movie, but more enjoyable to watch than TLJ. TROS plays tone and style like a SW film. TLJ played like a LOTR film in terms of pacing and tone to me.

- There are a lot of throwbacks to IJ in TROS. Some Palpatine scenes played like the Mola Ram sacrifice scenes in IJ:TOD.
- My biggest realization since TFA is that Bob Iger has no business calling shots on filmmaking or final cut because he's a CEO, not a filmmaker.

- Rey's heredity was not well done. It can easily be interpreted as a usurpation of the Skywalker line. She should have been a Kenobi and the Reylo thing could have ended the series with the marriage of the two families/clans.
- It also seems to be pushing the choose your gender/identity thing, going with the current zeitgeist. If this is the case, these last few films are beyond SJ issues. This is an agenda. Have they not learned from Ghostbusters, Terminator and SW by now? Why keep pushing this and lose money?

- BTW, People loved Ahsoka, Leia, Ripley, etc. These characters and their development was strong. It was not because we were told to like them or else.

- We may have a Terminator: Dark Fate situation on our hands. LONG LIVE I-VI.
- Maybe George will take Disney to court for breach of contract and win the company back

Hence, next point - very strange vibe.

I just saw the film and liked it. Was it flawless? No. Was any of the SW flicks flawless? Hell no.
Too early to talk about details; most of you haven't seen the movie yet.

I'll be missing the Skywalker saga on many, many levels.

Han scene is great. I wonder what the prequels could have been with an Adam Driver level actor. He is the best thing about these.

I have not seen the movie, but your issues really hit home with me. I have read all the leaks, etc. I find the biggest issue is that JJ had to do too much in not enough time.

Saying the film was rushed and seems like two films in one has always been my biggest concern since TLJ. There are so many issues with TLJ, but one that never gets discussed is the lack of a time-lapse. Go watch ROTS after Clones and we see how the Clone Wars hardened Anakin as he's able to best Dooku with ease after being dominated. Look at Jedi after Empire... Luke shows up and is a Jedi Knight. Or even Empire after ANH, we see how Luke has risen the ranks in the Rebellion and is training.

TLJ had no off-screen development between it and TFA. The overall story was not pushed forward off screen and we really weren't close to any sort of climax or end goal. TFA set TLJ up nicely to have a few months where Rey can grow with Luke, develop a bond, and we can learn why Luke went to the first temple, etc, etc. Snoke even says to Hux that it was time to complete Ren's training. This could have set up a nice pair of master-student relations or whatever.

I think TROS had a lot of good ideas, but they should have pulled as Harry Potter 7 and split this into two films. It didn't need to be a trilogy. This whole project never had a plan and a road map. It relied on discovery writing and the result was TFA setting things up and TLJ coming in and dismissing what had been presented in a very awkward way.

It's not that "fan theories were wrong" - I hated how critics claimed people were pissed over that. It's that no one was wrong or right. No one Snoke theory was wrong, because nothing was answered. Or the answers we were given (Rey's parents) had to be retconned and we get this tug-of-war resulting in JJ bringing back The Emperor because why not. What else is there to do?

Rian killed off Snoke but it was very obvious that Kylo wasn't fully evil. He hesitated to kill Leia in the same movie and didn't even pull the trigger. We were left with an antagonist who wasn't impressive. We never felt like he was more powerful than Rey. Actually, no, we did. At one point in the trilogy... in TFA before Rey goes all Mary Sue and speed runs the force.

Which is another problem... Rey is unlikable. People ask "who is Rey" but really who is she? Like what does she even like? Can we even describe her? What personality traits? At least I can describe Anakin's personality in the prequels and the dude develops... he faces challenges. Rey is here going through Star Wars on easy mode. That isn't fun. That isn't a good character. There is no growth.

People claim that TROS is undoing TLJ, but the truth is that TLJ undid a lot of TFA and pretty much wiped the slate clean. But even worse, the slate wasn't even just clean, it was straight up cut in half. As such, JJ had one movie to wrap up a trilogy that sadly undoes the prophecy and hurts the original films by taking away their purpose in the greater story.

There needed to be a map. A roadmap to dictate where each movie would end and what the goal was. It's clear they had no idea what they were doing with Rey. It's awkward, like Luke and Leia being brother and sister.

I honestly feel like if JJ had a chance to do 9 and 10 and combine TROS into two movies then we'd actually have something good. An actual fitting end. As such it's like we got episode 7, and episode 8 was sort of a 7.5 that hurt TFA in a big way, the trilogy and whatever other movie had to come after it and finish the story off.

The sad truth is that there was something here, but it was too much to pack into one movie without ending up with a 4 hour film.

I'll give my full thoughts after seeing the thing, but hopefully having poor expectations will help.

I think people who will have seen this movie fully will probably be better to give a valid opinion on it, so i'm going to wait until then, but from all i've read and seen, it seems like there were some very questionable choices made and I don't think this will be the slam-dunk that Disney was hoping it would be. I also hope that this really isn't the actual end of the Skywalker story, because if it is....it would be a shame.

I saw it yesterday here in Belgium. It was the premiere of the movie and the seats were half empty. I remember VII being way more crowded. Oh how the 'flame' has died out... I went in unspoiled, apart from some merch I've seen like the Sith Troopers and a few of the trailers (I kind of expected Palpatine).

Things I really liked in the movie:

- The first half felt like a great adventure quest, bit of an Indiana Jones feel to it. I really enjoyed it.
- The humour and banter. I think they did great this time. I remember the 'Hux/Hugs' joke all to well in the very first two minutes of VIII and how it ruined my entire experience for the movie.

- A few new fun characters. The horseriders being defectors just like Finn was a great idea. Babu Frik was great too.

- The turn of Ben. I felt relieved he redeemed himself.
- Small cameo of Harrison. Still wonder how fat the cheque must have been for him to come back one more time.

- Visually the movie looked great. Cinematography was top-notch. I liked the variety in the new worlds.
- A few Force powers we knew from the games are now canonized! Force Healing just like in Jedi Outcast... I see the Mandalorian did the same with baby yoda in Ep 7.


Things I did NOT like:

- The rushed explanation how Palpy came back.
- Palpy his OP lightning. like what the actual fuck.

- The Force teleportation of physical objects. Kylo should have pulled Rey's chain to examine it with the Force but not actually pull it through space. It kind of was hinted with the water droplets in Episode 8 but... damn. Is there anything the Force can't do? Soon we'll have time travel with the Force...

- There is little room to breathe in the movie. So much going on, so fast.

- Apart from Snap Wexley and Leia (from sheer exhaustion), no one dies. A gazillion Star Destroyers but everyone lives. Ok. This should have been a more weighty battle with a few important casualties.
- Lando was in there just to pull the nostalgia string. The guy is old and tired, and it showed.

- Rey Palpatine. Though I liked the message it portrayed that family is more than a bloodline.
- Palpy's convoluted plan. My god, how many steps are there to Galaxy domination really? What was the point of starting the First Order? Do the Final Order and have your planet destroying ships park next to every planet you control and DONE. Why build the Starkiller Base just to one-shot 7 or so planets? DAMN. Where did all the people in the Star Destroyers come from? A whole army hidden in a location only to be reached with two Sith compassas that were not even found at the start of the movie so how the F did they even GET THERE?

Overall, setting questions aside and letting the movie come as it is, it's entertaining and a visual spectacle. A few genuine laughs here and there and a really nice quest for the first half. It ends with a feeling of pointlessness though. The trilogy was really hurt by giving it to two different directors with no final game in mind at the start of the first movie, and it shows. It tried to fix a few things people really hated in XIII but it's just irredeemable what happened in that one.

The big baddy should have been Darth Plagueis, really. It would have arced the entire saga in a coherent way. Palpy's plan was the Empire and it failed. The way I see it is that Plagueis cheated death and gathered strength in the secret Sith Exogol. The rest could basically have played out the same. In that way all that has happened, was contained in this even bigger overshadowing threat. Revealing that even Palpy was but an apprentice... imagine the evil Plagueis must've been....

Just seen it. Really enjoyed it. It's not perfect but then no Star Wars film ever has been.

Saw it last night... it’s not very good in my opinion. It’s part course correction from TLJ and part fan service. It’s hugely disjointed and doesn’t feel connected to either TFA or TLJ, and of course it undermines the journey of both Anakin and Luke. I think they’ll be quite a critical backlash against it (it seems so badly put together), and I’d imagine that it will ultimately be more divisive than TLJ, as it only serves to underline what a missed opportunity the sequels have been collectively.

Just saw it. It’s kind of a nonsensical mess but I’m getting too old to care about these things. It’s entertaining and has some good scenes. Zombie Emperor was awful, Abrams is an awful writer, but at the end of the day, I’ll still buy the BluRay and enjoy it from time to time.

Adam Driver saved this trilogy. He’s the best thing about it for sure.

Just saw it and while all of my previous thoughts are accurate I want to state once more than this film has A LOT of good ideas, but unfortunately, it has wrap everything up in one film when it would be been so much better as two.

The whole Sith world element is cool and would have benefited nicely from more screen time. The Emperor in general needed more time. Again, not explained how he survived and how he gets his strength back comes sooooooo out of nowhere.

I feel like the sequels were influenced by Harry Potter or something... objects being brought into other worlds through a force bond is so insane I feel like the "force dayad" or whatever and how rare it is should have been touched upon more. I kinda like the idea, but with too much of this series, concepts are just thrown to us.

Don't like how OP Force Ghosts are... Luke lifting X-wing is a nice callback to Dagobah but come on.

I think JJ did *very* well with what he had to work with after the MESS that was TLJ, but man did not having a roadmap really throw this trilogy off.

I do, however, want to throw an idea to everyone. Imagine if at the end of TLJ instead of the dumb broom boy sequence, we saw Kylo on a throne or something and suddenly The Emperor's message began to play setting up a big plot twist or leading into this one much better... or if the Resistance wasn't crippled so badly at the end of the second film and Lando came in on Crait with a large army to put Resistance on even footing with the First Order...

It's weird having cavalry show up in TROS but not TLJ. Again, TLJ really fucked this trilogy up so hard.

As crazy as this sounds, the sequels would benefit from special editions. TROS as a whole I think could use some sort of extended edition. I think JJ did well honestly. You look at what he inherited and I say good on him. It's not perfect. AT ALL. And this movie doesn't ever really stop, but I think he corrected the error that was TLJ. Again tho, this really needed to be two films.

10pm showing. 18 people in theater. Adam is great. I’d love to see more of Ben. Emperor was freaky. TFA felt like it was in the SW universe... TLJ veered so far off course it took a series of quick vignettes and serious dumping on TLJ to get it close to the universe, but so derivative and “poetry/it rhymes” that it’s a wash of awesome visuals only.

The hug at the end between Rey, Finn and Poe seemed like a little 3PO action was coming up.
Ending was strange.

The Rise of Skywalker is pure Star Wars cocaine.

Yeah I'm sure we'll all babble on about this and that and add our own psuedo nonsensical long-winded diatribes, but at the end of the day most of us will eventually own the blu-ray and in time to come it will be just another episode in the saga.

Agreed. It kept my attention and distracted me at the same time.

Fucking loved it.

I can finally enjoy the trailers, TV spots, featurettes, soundtrack, etc. Not to mention the mad frenzy of spoiler-fueled fear and excitement on this board these past few months.

Saw it last night.

I absolutely, honestly and unabashedly loved this movie. It had me by the nutz from start to finish and wouldn't let go.
I don't see it as a "course-correction." I see it as a sequel. One might as well call ROTJ a "course-correction" to ESB.
This movie actually makes TFA and TLJ better, and I really liked those too (despite a few minor qualms I had about specific details). Hell, for me it's a much better finale than ROTJ (which I've bitched about since 1983 anyway, so that's just me). ROTJ and TPM both could have used the Act I pacing that TROS has.

Also, this is one of the only Star Wars movies in which the acting did not make me cringe.

Incorporating Carrie Fisher into this movie was damn near flawless. I didn't even once think about the fact that she had died before they shot this movie.

One of my biggest questions from Ep.7 & 8 was answered - Who the hell was Snoke? It was answered as well as it needed to be. There are at least two Snokey figures in tanks early in the film, and Palpatine says "I created Snoke." That's enough explanation for me.

A couple of random observations based on what others have said here and elsewhere:

- "Palpatine's return isn't explained." Yes, it is. Or at least as much as it needs to be. This is mythology, not sci-fi. We have no problem with stuff like this happening in Tolkien or Ovid.

- "No good guys got killed in the big battle with all of those Star Destroyers." Yes, they did. Watch the movie.

The ending was powerful and beautiful on every level for me.

I'll be seeing it again on Sunday, and I'll see if anything strikes me as objectionable the 2nd time around.

Also - Did anybody else notice the Wedge (Denis Lawson) cameo?

Just got home from my first viewing. My theater was packed...not a single seat was available in the 20 minutes before the lights dimmed.

I too, loved this film. The two words that come to mind are "Epic" and "Relentless." This movie had a LOT of territory to cover, and JJ and his crew did about as admirable job as anyone could do.

Let's get this out of the way...I cringed at the kiss between Rey and Kylo. It felt totally unnecessary for a scene that already had a lot of weight. My opinion...it was there to appease the Reylo faction of fans. The actions of the two characters - Rey vs. Palpatine and Kylo saving Rey - were enough to make that scene have the proper weight.

The only good part was the quick smile Kylo had just before dying.
That was a nice touch.


Now, for the rest of this packed film.

My highlights:

Everything about this movie was BIG. Big landscapes, environments. JJ and his crew didn't hold anything back here, and the settings were magnificent.

The X-Wing being raised out of the Ahch-To ocean was a gorgeous callback to Empire Strikes Back.
The music was the same and Luke "redeemed" his earlier failure to lift his submerged ship.

Lando's reveal.
Totally unexpected and fun.
I wish he had a little more screen time, but I enjoyed every second he was on there.

I found Poe and Finn more likable and easier to cheer for throughout this film. I get why people think Finn has Force sensitivity, but I attribute some of his actions to being more mature and experienced. He knows his way around First Order ships and protocols, and that came in very handy throughout. I liked the adversity and self-doubt placed in Poe, more in this film than the previous two. Made his character journey more investment-worthy and payoff-worthy.

Palpatine... Ok, so I wasn't clear on the *how* part of his comeback...wish that had a bit more explanation to it. Or are we saying he did learn Plaguies' trick of immortality, at least when it came to being thrown down reactor shafts? His death, at the hands of Rey, had a neat callback to the deaths in the climactic scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Melting faces and heads do the trick every time.

Rey was an awesome character in this film. The way she carried herself, she reminded me very much of Luke in ROJ. She had a different, more powerful aura about her, and yet, she didn't have all the confidence and bravado. Her force lightning at the transport shocked me.

Chewie not being in that transport was also a neat callback to Raiders, when Marion wasn't in the truck Indy shot and blew up in the Cairo marketplace.

I liked that Rey didn't just sail through this film unharmed. She was beat the hell up on Exegol, and that was essential to see. She needed adversity, consequences and visible and physical pain. I felt all that through her character. But her strength growth was also easier for me to accept due to the in-universe time distance from TLJ. That element alone helped correct what was, in my mind, the biggest thing that held TLJ back, was its immediacy after the events of TFA.

Kylo Ben... was the most fascinating character to me in this film, and probably for the entire ST. One issue with TFA, TLJ was that we were told of his internal conflict, but never really saw it. It was a "tell me" not "show me" situation. We were "shown" more of that in this film, and the character and film benefited from it. Rey had become more powerful than him, and I bought it totally. He was more vulnerable and less sure of himself for most of the movie. I sort of expected him to be redeemed right after TFA, and I wasn't sure if that could be believably pulled off. In my opinion, it was.

Han Solo showing up was a fun surprise.

R2-D2 being at Leia's bedside when she died ripped my heart out. I didn't expect her passing to have as much of an emotional effect on me as it did. Her death was expected and necessary, and yet, it still hurt. Does anyone else think she was Force-projecting to get Kylo's attention during the Death Star duel, a lesser version of Luke's same trick in TLJ? We didn't see her in that scene as we saw Luke in TLJ, so maybe she did, maybe she didn't...in my head, she did, and that sets up parallel deaths for the two twins.

I came away from the film being emotionally drained, but satisfied and thankful I have survived long enough to see this story through to its completion. I probably look at Star Wars uniquely from anyone else. To me, this is a story that's already happened, and parts of that overall history are being revealed to us, one bit at a time. So I don't actively try to critique the finer points of filmmaking, dialogue, stuff like that when it comes to Star Wars.

I accept what I have been given, and I accept it as the gift I consider it to be. Are there aspects of any and all films I would change, if I were writing or directing? Sure, of course. But Star Wars has given me so much over the past 42 years, going back to when I was a 4 year old toddler seeing A New Hope in the theater. I remember that day well to this day, and I recall being so mad that Darth Vader got away. This franchise has allowed me to retain the essence of 4 year old me, 7 year old me and 10 year old me (my ages when the OT films came out) well into adulthood. What else on earth can do that?

So I say thank you to George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Richard Marquand, JJ Abrams, Rian Johnson, Gareth Edwards, Ron Howard, John Williams, Ben Burtt, Joe Johnston, John Knoll, Ralph McQuarrie, Doug Chiang, Ryan Church, Eric Tiemens, Ken Ralston, Dennis Muren, Roger Guyett, Dan Mindel, David Tattersall, Rob Coleman, Matthew Wood, Rick McCallum, Kathy Kennedy, Michelle Rejwan, Rick Carter, Phil Tippett, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Ian McDiarmid, Frank Oz, Hayden Christensen, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Ahmed Best, Jake Lloyd, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Lee, Temura Morrison, Oscar Isaac, Daisey Ridley, John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Alden Ehrenreich, Joonas Suatumo, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke and everyone else, in front of the camera and behind the camera for this saga. What Star Wars has done will never be duplicated and everyone involved in these films are geniuses at what they do.

Thank you all for the ride of a lifetime.

For those who liked it - if you also saw the new Terminator film, you were ok with the choice to have young John Connor die in the first five minutes of the film?

I liked he was missing fingers and such... I think they found his tattered body and brought him back to what we saw.

For a film clogged with expositional dialogue, I found the whole ‘Palpatine has returned’ to be the most god awful thing about the film. It was very much a case of ‘because he can’... Indeed, I would rather the films remain focused on Snoke and Kylo Ren. Alternatively, if Palpatine had to be used, it would have made much more sense, and given the sequels much more structure, if Kylo Ren/Hux et al where trying to find/resurrect Palpatine in TFA. As it stands, TROS feels like a rushed sequel to another set of films. It feels disconnected, both in terms of narrative and plot, to TFA and TLJ. And whilst I genuinely like a couple of things in TROS (e.g. the hunt for the Sith holocron or whatever it is), it’s too little too late IMO.

There can be no debate about it, Abrams has a supreme eye for visuals. The visual tone set to every scene was about as perfect as one could get. He needs to ratchet down the "Michael Bay action aesthetics" in a major way. What's the point of showing astounding action if most of the time it's all blurred out from speed effects and 1,000 layers of overlapping chaos? Hollywood in general, needs to cut this action aesthetic out entirely. Rogue One's impeccable depiction of what I'm describing is what SHOULD be The Standard.

Soundtrack? Perfect.
The acting? Better in every regard from the prior two outings of these characters. And Ian McDiarmid? Proves yet again why he's one of The Finest performers ever. He chews up every scene like it's candy.


But the plot?

They say that given enough time, a room full of monkeys, randomly typing on keyboards, will reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. That is certainly not true (look at the fruits of the internet). But that room full of monkeys WILL type out the script to Rise of Skywalker a thousand times over.

I started to list all of the plot holes, big and small. Several dozen "minor" plot holes, at least half that of "major" ones. I gave up, knowing full well that there were many more to be recorded. It is a nauseating endeavor, as its scale is so vast, and the wounds that they produce are so deep...

Let's just take a quick look at Palpatine, shall we...? Actually, I don't even think that it's accurate to call "him" by that name, as he states that he "...has died before..." and he also expresses that he is inhabited by "...all of the Sith..."
Henceforth, I will refer to him as "The Dark Son," and with the plural pronoun of "them."

They strongly stated numerous times that by killing them, The Dark Son will inhabit their killer's body, and then they shall rule the universe together. As Rey takes her Three Steps of Total Victory towards The Dark Son, they don't stop shooting out lightning at her lightsabers, even though it was gravely hurting them by doing so. Palpatine himself was laid out flat by Windu the last time he did it. They certainly know better than to keep doing that. Unless, of course, they WANTED her to keep reflecting the lighting till their physical form disintegrated.

And why's that?

Because they plainly stated that they had to be slain in order to inhabit the body of their killer. Maybe, technically, it wasn't Rey who directly killed them, because it was THEIR lightning that was REFLECTED BACK at them; it was THEY who were the SOURCE of the lightning. But then, why it does it REQUIRE ME to declare this? Isn't that ABRAMS' job?

Rey killed The Dark Son. As far as we know, Rey wasn't inhabited by even a single Sith spirit. Was that because her body was topped off with Jedi souls, so there wasn't any room left at the hotel? Quite timely that many of those whispering Jedi souls were never exposed to Qui Gonn's discovery of maintaining one's consciousness once one's physical form was abandoned by one's spirit. But I digress...

I could go on and on just about Palpatine. But what's the point? Not an officially sanctioned word of dialogue will change because of it.

THIS is IT.
The Final Word on the Skywalker saga.
I have to face facts.



The monkeys won.

I like Kyles rants! Saw it a 2nd time tonight with 13 yr old daughter... she loved it. I think I liked it on a second viewing also. The digs at TLJ make me laugh.

I didn't really like it to be honest. It had some great moments, but it was so disjointed (and not because of the Carrie footage.)

One thing I kept on thinking while watching...it was obvious that this went through super extensive reshoots and there were so many things that were either cut or simply changed and worked around. That's how I felt at the end with Palpatine, it's how I felt with the first half of the film. It wasn't cohesive at all, just randomly jumping around from location to location and throwing shade at RJ and TLJ. Which is really funny considering I reported how JJ hates TLJ and that it totally fucked up the ST. And everyone I talk to now says that there's literally no point to TLJ now. Honestly you can just skip it and go on to TROS.

As someone who's really familiar with the editing process and who edits things myself, I can tell this is like four different films in one. which is why I buy the rumors that are going around right now, but that's for the other thread.

The first half jumped around so quickly it made me feel carsick. I really enjoyed the middle. The shoehorning of Palpatine right from the opening scroll really underlined how off-script the middle film was, how unplanned this trilogy's arch was. Oh well.

I enjoyed the ride! It was 42 years in the making, and the final chapter was fast paced, with many elements that I probably missed and I'll need to see again.

I think watching this story unfold, I had a way that I thought it should turn out, and those damn writers paid absolutely no attention to me!

I think the criticisms of the sequels, with the swerve back and forth between the story each director wanted to tell was evident, and I think that ties into this being such a loved and studied franchise, everyone sees things how they would like to tell the story. I actually find some pleasure in seeing and thinking about the differences in what each storyteller had to say.

Thanks for not weaponizing Star Wars, homergreg. Much appreciated!

And I very much agree.

CoGro, your post exceeded all my expectations. Brilliantly said.

I agree with much of this. I disagree with some of this. I hold the PT in equal regard to the OT. But I respect your knowledge and passion. You make this place better.

I knew it was coming. Great read!

anyone have a tl;dr? I can't read that. (eye problem)

Been waiting for that. Thanks for the insight. Always my favorite commentary.

Thanks CoGro and I won't lie and say I read every word but I certainly understand the sentiment.

100% the fanbase must realise that never will any SW movie EVER AGAIN live up to the magic of the OT. That time is passed and as you said it was"lightning in a bottle". Only disappointment remains for anyone who believes otherwise.

I too wondered what the ST could be about once Disney announced it. I was confused as to where the story could go. While it's my least favourite of the trilogies I still hold it very dear. I hope Disney stick to their word and end the Skywalker saga here, but I don't believe it will happen. They will revisit within the next 10 years or so.

In saying this the TROS blu-ray can not get here soon enough!

Notions of cohesion and oeuvre-spanning design are artistic concepts rarely applied to mainstream filmmaking. We were spoiled with an auteur like Lucas who treated these endeavors as art.

In the studio system, the reigning dictate is flashy entertainment value with a negligible interest in elaborately applied principles of design. What did we really expect from a massive corporation and their endless history of crass and cynical practices? Lucas built his whole empire in direct opposition to their whole rotten ethos and constantly voiced his criticism of it all.

Although I enjoyed the initial thrill of new Star Wars in TROS, it's remained as a kind of still-birth to me given everything that appears to have come to light about its making.

Damn shame.