Sequels Rant

Sequels Rant

Rey was absolutely not the issue in the sequels, she was the best part.

They should have focused more on the new trio: Rey, Poe, and Finn.

They should have followed through on the hunting about Finn being force sensitive (HE WIELDED A FUCKING LIGHTSABER?!?)

The whole point of the sequels was that anyone can be a hero, doesn’t have to be a crazy force dynasty (ex. Skywalkers), so it was very important to the narrative that Rey be no one, abandoned by scavenger parents. That was necessary, and by making her part of a blood dynasty (a Palestine), they ruined the point that Rey, coming from nowhere and no one, was still the hero.

Having her take the Skywalker name wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t powerful. It would’ve been cool if it was in a “I’ve chosen my own family” way if they had leaned more heavily into Luke and Leia being her family, not just mentors.

Kyle Ren was a poorly written antagonist. Other than having Snoke whispering to him, there was no real reason for him to be a maniac sith. Anakin Skywalker made horrible choices, but his descent into madness was understandable (BUT NIT JUSTIFIABLE!!) and I’m not saying Kyle Ren needed an entire trilogy to expand on why he became a sith, but there was zero effort to explain why. Also, he wasn’t scary enough. He felt like a cheap knock off of Darth Vader, but lacking any of the rage and grief that Vader had. Even in the original trilogy, without knowing the backstory, Vader was scary as fuck. Kyle Ren was just uninteresting, underdeveloped, and not scary. He could’ve been an interesting contrast to Rey (coming from nowhere and becoming the hero) as the villain who came from the Skywalker but still became the villain, but the directors weren’t bold enough in making him evil.

Also it’s so unrealistic for Luke to attack Ben bc he had a bad dream. This is the man who looked at his father, a genocidal maniac who killed his mentor, blew up his sisters planet, and cut off his arm, and said “I can fix him”.

Kylo Ren and Rey’s romance was pure fan service. It had potential, but instead of building emotional tension and connections, the directors relied too heavily on pure physical attraction between the actors. As a supposed force dyad, they should’ve had an intense bond, not a few conversations and eye contact. The kiss at the end undermined the force dyad as well, bc force dyads are meant to be a soul connection, not a physical one. Having their foreheads touch together would have been more touching, but they gave into fans demands.

I did really like the Kylo Ren’s actual name was Ben though. We know him as Obi-Wan Kenobi, but to Leia, the man who rescued her when she was 10 and to Luke, the man who taught him the ways of the force and looked out for him, and to Han, the old man who sacrificed himself so they could get away, wasn’t Obi-Wan. He was Ben.

I don’t even have to say anything about the piss poor palpatine plot line.

In conclusion, the directors weren’t bold enough and they didn’t have a clear image of what they wanted to say with the trilogy, so despite a lot of potential, the movies fell flat. The first one was great though!

Melida/Daan: The Legend of Ben

Ben is among the oldest of all the young at 13.

At 13 he soothes the fevers of the littlest who have never had enough strength or food or love, he holds up buildings that should collapse and kill them all (yet he does not do so with his strength for he is scrawny like them, weak like them. He doesn’t even touch the wood) finds water sources that are impossible to see, shoots steady even when his hands shake (as if guided by something, as if he is not entirely himself but something other, something more).

He calls it the force, they call it Ben.

At 13 he becomes a legend.

Legends aren’t born, but made in the desperate tunnels full of dying children. They say he appeared one day from the sky, that when his elders left, he refused to. That he was not born on the bloody battlefields of hate, but that he stayed because he saw them, felt with them, heard their song. He stayed when the Jedi left.

The children see how he balanced Cersai and Nield (love and hate, peace and war, water and fire). They see how the three click into place, Melida and Daan and Other. They wonder if maybe there was always an empty spot between them, waiting to be filled. Wonder if that is how this war started. Wonder if between every Melida and every Daan there is a space for something Other.

No one remembers how the war started, only that it did. Maybe there used to be a third faction, maybe something other (something more, something Ben) and when it died or left there was nothing left to bridge the Melida and the Daan.

Ben is sure as the earth, light as the air (only because they cannot hear him cry at night). He is a contradiction. He says strange things and does the impossible. Sometimes he glows with something else (something more).

He is remembered as the one who stayed (no one will say where he went). He is remembered as the Other between all Melida and all Daan.

There is an empty seat in every house. An empty seat in the Trivumate, waiting to be filled. Outside historians call it the Absent Third Phenomena— they are not sure why it is (they do not want to dig deeper, dig into the bloody history, tear their secrets and traditions and culture from the rotting bodies of child soldiers. they do not want to know). In Melida/Daan there is a word that is untranslatable that describes it, A’Benui. It is sacred. It is told to every child too young to remember the sewers, told by every Young that was touched by Ben (his something other).

(The Melida-Daan don’t know this, but somewhere else in the galaxy Obi-Wan Kenobi leads his second army of child soldiers and wonders if he was meant for anything else. Wonders if they see the cracks and uncertainty and self loathing; the first ones hadn’t. He wonders if they would be ashamed of him now, fighting, bleeding, warring, killing even now. Wonders if he will ever know peace or if he will always be a false legend made from blood and tears and a need to believe.)

hot take: I don’t like The Mandolorian series

There’s a difference between the best Star Wars movie and your favorite

example:

The best is objectively (do not argue) The Empire Strikes Back

My favorite is the dumpster fire of the Phantom menace

One of my favorite niches in the Star Wars fandom is Eldritch Abomination Skywalkers

Count Dooku is a Shithead, but not for the reason you think:

So count Dooku was Qui-Gon Jinn’s master, but they were estranged because of very different personalities and outlooks, but Jinn was still his kid, so he very obviously cared for him

In fact, Qui-Gon’s death was the catalyst for Dooku leaving the order bc he had lots of critiques of the Jedi order (overly political, ineffective, hypocritical, not true to the code), but after Qui-gon died he was like “why bother?”

Which is my problem. Like sir, your grandchild is still perfectly alive and desperately in need of your help. His master is dead and he now has a traumatized child to raise while extremely traumatized himself. Qui-gon is dead, BUT YOUR GRANDCHILD IS RIGHT THERE?!?

No, instead of belong obi wan and offering support, he just dips