The Skywalker Saga concludes with... "The Rise of Skywalker"...? Okay. On this special episode, the prodigal host Ryan Daly returns along with his brother Neil Daly to share their first impressions of the forthcoming Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.
Warning: this discussion includes speculation and possible albeit unintentional spoilers.
If you haven't seen the teaser yet, watch it right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adzYW5DZoWs
Let us know what you think! Leave a comment or send an email to: RDalyPodcast@gmail.com.
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Great discussion. I was thinking the same thing about “Skywalker”. An evolution of the Jedi into that grayer area where you can channel your “dark side” just a bit, much like what we’ve seen from both Luke and Rey, without going over like Anakin.
Ultimately, I admire Last Jedi for having the guts to go off script and challenge it’s audience…but the second film in a trilogy shouldn’t go THAT far afield, I think. This trailer does seem very fan-servicey, but I don’t mind it one bit.
As for Palpatine, I have no problems if he ends up being the big bad. It would somewhat legitimize the prequels a bit, showing this was his show all along. And he’s the Darkseid of the Star Wars Universe. The comics always have it come back to the big bad, so I don’t mind it. I’m also up for Anakin showing up as a Force ghost along with Luke to help Rey. Give Hayden Christansen some redemption too.
Chris
I may not agree with Ryan’s assessment of TLJ, but I’m glad to finally understand it. I thought it was 1/3 a good movie. I think I might be a greater fan of a few of its scenes, but overall the movie left me cold in retrospect.
As for this final one, I’m glad it’s supposed to put a bow on everything. Now maybe people can move on.
Good show boys!
Ryan, I find your assessment of Rian Johnson’s approach in TLJ interesting. I didn’t take his tone to be “This stuff is stupid, you shouldn’t care about it” but more of “Ok, the last movie really dug deep into the nostalgia, now let’s try something else.” I agree, everyone kinda gives TFA a pass because it was the first good SW movie in a while and everyone was so happy to have “it” back. But if they had just done that AGAIN, it would have been too much. So while, yeah, Johnson did kinda break all the toys, I didn’t take his intention to be malevolent or condescending towards SW fans.
For my money, I don’t think the Emperor is “back” at least in the sense he is an active, live participant in the story. I think that’s just too ham-handed, even for JJ. But we’ll find out won’t we.
Finally, someone who seems to understand that defying expectations (as The Last Jedi most certainly did) need not be equated with “insulting the fans.”
Your view of Skywalker as a kind of “Jedi class” got me thinking of an old PlayStation game Armored Core where the top-ranked pilot/adversary was named Nine-Ball and, in subsequent games, the top-ranked pilots were called Nine Breakers.
Personally I find that possibility too conceited given the history of the cinematic Skywalkers. Luke was basically setting right what Anakin had helped ruin. I could see it as an honorary title for the old EU Luke whose Jedi academy prospered, not this Luke who done quit and run off to let the Empi– “First Order” rise up.
The new trilogy isn’t simply “not my Star Wars” for those who grew up with the original trilogy; I feel the sentiment is shared by a number of those who grew up with the prequel trilogy. But it’s more than just rose-colored glasses. I agree with D.A.G.’s 1/3 good film appraisal. TLJ had decent ideas but lousy scripting, execution, and damage control. I do appreciate you guys’ temperance and, reigning in my sexist mysogyny, I’ll leave it at that.
Nice idea about the Skywalker legacy. Over here, we sort of think Kylo Ren WILL get a redemption arc. But who knows.
The only thing I really want from the movie is Luke’s force ghost haunting/trolling Kylo, and the Death Star as a haunted castle with the potential for evil Sith ghosts is part of the teaser, so I might get what I want!
Thanks for the upbeat episode.
Nice to have the show back.
I want this to be good. I really do. But that Palpatine laugh at the end just makes me so frustrated and sad. You and I talked about this even before Force Awakens came out on another podcast (Kill or Bothans or something like that), but this finalizes and solidifies that fear I had about this trilogy inherently undermining the ending of Return of the Jedi. Now, I could argue that it already has to a degree, but this would be that in the most extreme form.
Bringing Palpatine back in any form (survived his “death”, clone, dark force ghost, time travel, alt dimension, life model decoy, whatever) steals the happy ending I’ve been happily living with for my entire life.
This is an inherent problem with ongoing franchises. The fact that they never end, means we never get to grant the characters we love a happy ending. But Star Wars had one. And before somebody starts quoting “Dark Empire” at me, I didn’t read those. Deliberately. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to see how the victory I loved turned out to not really be a victory back then in print form, and I don’t want to see it now on screen.
No, options for bringing him back vary in their atrociousness, but none of these work for me (and I realize, possibly only me. So let me say it for the people who don’t get it: I’m not giving reasons anybody else should not like this. I’m giving my reasons why I, me, myself, don’t like it).
Worst option: he survived the end of Return of the Jedi. This means he outlived Han and Luke. Fuck you, no.
Not quite the worst option: clones. I mean, we have them in this universe so it’s an option. It’s also one that was already done in Legends, and it doesn’t fix my fundamental problem with bringing this character. It’s just slightly less viscerally infuriating. And I’ll lump any variant of “Snoke was possessed by Palpatine” or anything like that.
Better than the others, but still bad: dark force ghost. Ok, so this at least means he died and stayed dead. But I still don’t like it, and have a hard time believing that none of the other force users who are also ghosts ever thought that this might happen.
The one and only thing I’ve been able to think of that will not upset me at all is if it’s something like a character goes into that wreckage of the Death Star (which I presume to be the second one, where Palpatine died) and it’s just a bad vibe. Kind of like the cave on Degoba. Use the laugh there, he never shows up, he’s just a lingering imprint of bad juju, but not in any way consciously involved in anything.
Cue the people who will call me a buzzkill for not waiting to see the movie, as if I didn’t already know.
“I am so tired.” – Peter Parker (Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse)
Seriously with a title that’s passed down from person to person based on a name and you didn’t go with Caesar?
But
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones.
So let it be with Caesar