Swolo is now illegal

Where do they celebrate Christmas in Star Wars?

In a galaxy fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la away.

redrascal1:

I’ve been looking back at the entire ST….what was its purpose?

This is a question a lot of folk are asking, I honestly thought it was basically the torch being passed to the next generation. But…nope.

It was to quietly get rid of the Skywalkers….and replace them. With Rey.

I’ve harped on about this over and over…but the bee still buzzes in the bonnet. If you remove TLJ, TFA and TROS are The Rey Story. Okay, so she was all along meant to be the main protagonist. But…why then, was it called the SkywalkerSaga if it was about….someone else?

I didn’t bother with any supplementary material post TROS, unless it featured Ben, but I’ve read comments by those who did, and the way they hammered home ‘Rey is our heroine’ was pretty obvious, putting it mildly. Han had apparently ‘found his heir’. Chewie had a ‘special bond’ with her. Leia was forever hugging her. Anakin’s sabre chose her.

Rey had Leia’s leadership skills, Luke’s Force powers, Han’s talent as a pilot, Chewie’s skills as a mechanic. 

Rey was the perfect heir.

But…shewasn’t a Skywalker.

Why not?

Why did they make the ONLY real Skywalker….the villain? Why not instead make Rey Leia, Han or Luke’s daughter, a long lost child waiting to be discovered. 

Why such contempt for the legacy family? 

I honestly can’t understand it. Did they think they could do better? Because if the Trio are the best they could do, obviously not.

I would like meanwhile, to say thank you to Rian Johnson. Who, I am absolutely certain, tried very hard to save Ben Solo. 

Thank you for at least trying, Rian. From a disillusioned Skywalker and former SW fan.

There are few things more frustrating than love bombing, both with storytelling and in real life.

I wrote a long entry about The Mandalorian a few months ago where I lamented that the entire show seemed to me like a love bombing that went nowhere. The show lives from its dynamic between both protagonists. Then at the end of Season 2, they were parted. I heard children were crying at the scene.

They’re together now again, so there’s that. But I keep wondering why they had TLJ made in the first place, endearing us to the characters of the sequels and setting up a strong relationship between Ben and Rey, if they meant to take it nowhere.

During the classics, we were rooting for the trio, too. During the prequels we didn’t because we knew that the story would end badly. But Attack of the Clones set the stages for stories like The Clone Wars,The Bad Batch,The Book of Boba Fett.

Why did they make us love this story if there isn’t a follow-up? TRoS was a patch-up for the antis, not a follow-up.

I’m here, waiting for the promises of TLJ to be fulfilled. Rey is still far from being a heroine. Ben is officially dead but Anakin Skywalker, Boba Fett and Darth Maul also had been left for dead.

I’m here waiting.

redrascal1:

Okay….now we all know that TLJ received a very mixed reception, despite it being the most critically acclaimed of the sequels….strangely apparently so did ESB, since hailed as the greatest SW film of all, but…..back to the ST.

On the surface, the furore created by RJ’s masterpiece appears to mostly be because old time fans ‘didn’t like’ how Luke was depicted. They saw their ‘god’ so to speak, with feet of clay. But it wasn’t just ‘old fanboys’….a lot of posters on the JCF didn’t like it either, so do a number of youtube commentators…..and these ones in particular were also Kylo haters.

And I am pretty sure that their contempt….was because RJ wanted us to feel for Kylo.

He presented him not as an arrogant, privileged ‘rich boy’, which his haters choose to see him as, but a broken, tormented young man struggling to cope with mental illness and the PTSD caused by years of psychological and physical abuse at the hands of Snoke. He showed the ‘physical abuse’ very cleverly in TLJ. Notice how Kylo reacted when Snoke used Force lightning on him? 

It’sagonising. Remember how Luke screamed when the Emperor used it on him in ROTJ? Luke wasn’t a coward, but boy, did he squeal. Yet Kylo….didn’t make a sound. Which can only be because he had experienced it before - and had learned to keep silent. 

Notice how when Snoke uses the Force to pull Anakin’s lightsabre to him - he neatly rapped Rey on the head, but although most of us were watching Rey….behind her, Kylo wasn’t even looking at the sabre, he was staring at the floor, but he still ducked, because he was so used to Snoke hurting him. Little touches which nevertheless add up to an interesting concept.

Then, as the posters below so rightly point out….there is the way Kylo’s ‘tantrums’ are presented. In TFA, they are a source of humour. I actually laughed myself….until it struck me that he acts very much like I do in an autistic meltdown. 

And, in TLJ….RJ made sure there was NOTHING ‘funny’ about Kylo’s behaviour. He wasn’t making us laugh ….he was showing us that this young man was ill, not a whiny, sulky brat. He allowed Adam to show us just how ‘human’ Kylo was, how much he loathed himself…that sad little ‘yes, I am’ to Rey’s accusation that he was a ‘monster’.

He committed a terrible deed, that of patricide, because he was so tormented and the creature that had influenced him all his life had brainwashed him into thinking killing his father would end that torment. End the misery, end the pain….but it only caused more pain. Because as Luke so rightly pointed out, he would never truly get over the horror of what he’d done. Luke’s actions at the end of TLJ were completely in character. Luke fought with love, not weapons. Love for his father, whom he saved, by throwing away his lightsabre at the end.

Love for the nephew he’d failed, again with a simply human mistake, which drove him to sacrifice himself for said nephew, so he could release his pain and fury on a facsimile, therefore not having the death of another family member on his conscience.

I know a lot of people here disagree with me, especially Rey stans, and I respect their views, but for me, post the throne room scene, I actually disliked Rey. And it was entirely due to Adam’s acting. Yes, what he said to her was cold and cruel…but it was a pathetic attempt by a young man who had no idea of how to handle people (especially women) to get her to stay with him. That heartfelt ‘please’ at the end just about finished me off. I was actually hoping she’d stay - the complete opposite of the end of ESB when Vader attempts to sway Luke to his side. It was TLJ that truly made me a ‘Ben stan’….and it’s down to two things, RJ’s script…and Adam Driver’s phenomenal performance.

I was blown away by them. In the moments where I should have been cheering on the hero…I was cheering on the villain. And that is why Kylo haters dislike TLJ. They disliked Rian, and Adam, for showing them Kylo as a human being - not a ‘Darth Maul’, but the unhappy Ben Solo hiding behind the mask of Kylo Ren.

They wanted a monster. Rian and Adam gave us a human being. 

I absolutely agree with you but would like to add a few points.

I find it ironic that Luke stans pretended that TLJ Luke was “out of character” because “he left his friends in the dumps”, while the same fans were out of their minds with joy on seeing Luke again in The Book of Boba Fett.

In TLJ, Luke had messed up and went into exile driven by his shame, and the fear of doing worse if he took action again. In The Book of Boba Fett he is a legendary hero and as of yet, he has done nothing to be ashamed of. Yet he is in exile and it seems he is trying to cut himself off from all attachments. The New Republic is living trying times and he makes frogs float through the air. He is doing exactlywhat TLJ haters accused him of doing in TLJ, but fans don’t see it.

I wrote a long meta about it years ago: the problem with action movies is that most people who watch them expecting their heroes to look cool. It doesn’t matter that much what they do or why, it has to look good. In TBoBF Luke looks cool although he does nothing useful and has no reason to hide. In TLJ he’s an elderly man who drinks green milk and fans are embarrassed.

The problem with the Star Wars saga always was that action movie fans have a certain idea of how a “real man” is supposed to be: cool. They dislike Anakin Skywalker being emotional, Luke throwing away his weapon, Kylo Ren being a victim of abuse.

It hits too closely home. Action fans want to escape reality when they watch a movie, not to be confronted with their own inner and often painful realities. They dislike young Anakin, elderly Luke and TLJ Kylo because they’re not the kind of heroes (or villains) you could put on a pedestal. They’re so much like them that it frightens them to death.

TLJ, Reylo and Ben Solo fans are not that afraid of their inner darkness. Which is why we can appreciate these themes instead of running away screaming when the mirror is placed before our eyes.

benthelastskywalker:

ariainstars:

“Reylo” and The Problem With the „Beauty and the Beast” Trope

It’s been bothering me lately how many Star Wars and Reylo fans are bitterly disappointed not only with the sequels as a whole, but with the fact that the saga did not end with a grand love story.

There are many stories where the guy needs a woman to show him the way, to push him to become a better person. Some are very popular. But in all honesty, I don’t like them much, and for a reason.

Because when you look at the bottom line, the problem with this trope is: the woman does not need the man. He needs her. They guy, for one reason or another, needs to mature, to be redeemed, to make amends, to change in some way. The female is by his side to help him or not; but in any case, she is coded as the “reward” expecting him if he does undergo the change.

While there’s nothing wrong with this in a romance, it’s not realistic. A relationship or marriage can’t work if there is a massive power imbalance; and the more in a story the girl is coded as Good and the guy as Bad, the more improbable they are to find balance together, because even if he changes, he will have a bad past behind him and she won’t.

In Disney’s Beauty and The Beast, the narrative works rather well because the Beast is not a criminal, a killer or anything like that.

Which is totally different when we come to Reylo. We are dealing with a guy who has committed massive crimes, not least the horrible sin of patricide. Even if he does regret and change in the end, that doesn’t wash the blood from his hands. The fact that he was trapped, influenced mentally and in a bad place from birth is tragic but it does not make anything undone.

Now we could argue that by the end of the story, Rey needs Ben to save her life. He does - but Rey is unconscious. Does she even realize that he is dying because he gave her his life energy? I don’t believe so. There is nothing that suggests she does. The novelization says that she kisses him out of “gratitude”, but she assuredly was grateful because he had come to rescue her from the Knights of Ren and to assist her against Palpatine. And when he dies, she is completely taken aback, so I would assume that she is not aware of what actually cost him his life.

Many Reylo fans have argued and discussed how “Reylo is / must be Reverse Anidala”. The trouble is that the odds were against this narrative from the start because Rey did not need Ben. And all three movies show us again and again that she doesn’t, while he is the one who pursues her. The only time she went to him on her own was to convince him to help her against the First Order in order to let the Resistance win. But Ben / Kylo made it clear that he cared about her, not about the Resistance.

I have argued repeatedly that Anakin wasn’t a bad husband, meaning that if Ben had turned out to be a good partner, that wouldn’t have atoned for Anakin’s sins.

In Anakin’s and Padmé’s case, too, the man needed her, but she did not need him. Anakin needed Padmé to stay in balance within himself, and he knew it. Padmé knew it too, but if she had not married him, or if she never had met him, she wouldn’t have been worse off. Here life merely would have taken another turn.

I agree that for the curse of the Skywalker family to be finally lifted, a healthy union between Rey and Ben could be the key. But for a balanced relationship, she would have to need him the way he needs her; or better, both ought to mature enough so that they can love one another more than they needone another. However, as we leave them in The Rise of Skywalker, both of them are very far away from equality and maturity. Ben changed considerably within the course of the sequels; Rey didn’t go through any major character trials.

So, again, I see that the happy ending never was in the cards for the sequel trilogy. Rey is the one who still needs to face herself; while he must find an aim in life that gives him purpose, because his tragedy was knowing that he was not really needed by anyone.

I don’t know what Disney has in mind with the characters, but I have thought so for years and I still do: Ben’s salvation is not romantic love. To become Anakin’s foil for good, the only road for him is fatherhood.

Bring back Ben Solo!

I don’t  agree with the interpretation that Rey doesn’t need Ben. Yes, he’s the one constantly pursuing her, but just because she’s not always pursing him, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t care or doesn’t need him.  Ben is certainly the one who is more sure in his feelings that’s true.  Rey is a scared young woman, who, unlike Ben, didn’t grow up with parents to show her what romantic love looks like. She knows she feels something, she just can’t explain it. And it scares her and Rey tends to run away from or fight what she fears.

In TROS, Rey admits that no one knows her, not truly. Yes, the movie deleted Ben’s line of “But I do” but it is still in the novelization, so it’s still canon. Rey needs Ben because he’s the only one who really knows her. And TROS also made them a Dyad in the Force. “The two that are one.” They are forever linked to each other. Which is why killing off Ben made no sense. How could Rey ever survive, ever be truly happy without her sole mate?

And if you look at Rey’s face after Ben revives her, that smile when she says his name, it is the happiest we’ve seen her across all three movies. And then they took that way from her! She needed him and now he’s gone. If anyone at DLF has any sense, any future stories with Rey need to show just how much his death is affecting her, just how much she does need him.

Look, I did not suggest that Rey does not need Ben at all.

My take is that many Reylo’s got their relationship wrong believing it would more or less follow the “Beauty and the Beast” trope. There are many stories where the girl is an innocent, good person and the man needs to be saved by her.

My point is that I don’t like that trope. The problem, as I said, is that there is a huge power imbalance since the girl, in those stories, does not need the guy, while he is in need of her. And a power imbalance is not a good foundation for a healthy relationship. It’s maybe nice for a romantic love story, but how would they go on after that?

The sequels showed us over and over that Rey does not need Ben. Yes, he understands her since he knows loneliness the way she does; but he is in desperateneed of help. Rey is accustomed to being alone. She can live on her own - perhaps not happily, but she can.

When we first met Ben in his role as Kylo Ren, he was not just lonely, he was in hell. And after killing Han, he was in the deepest pit of hell. He needed Rey - as he needed his father, his mother and uncle - to bring him back and to feel like a normal human being again. Rey’s situation was never that desperate.

Which is why I still think that there was no way the sequels could have ended happily and with a love story. Ben was too far gone and Rey too independent. They did not match.

I hope for a continuation of their story, one where Ben is redeemed and Rey finally realizes that she doesneed him, to a certain extent, and that they can find balance at last.

But - sigh - who knows if and when DLF will regale us with that. Keeping my hopes up…