I also felt it destroyed many of the more interesting developments of The Last Jedi.
Two examples of this:
Rose is developed as a character in TLJ, only to be sent into the extreme background in “Rise of Skywalker” seemingly just to appease the vocal fan base who harassed the actress on social media
Rey goes from being “nobody” in TLJ, an interesting development clarifying the force as belonging to anybody, not just “pure bloods”, to suddenly in “Rise of Skywalker” transformed into royalty, heir apparent to the Emperor.
I also feel like it created some pretty striking contradictions within the Star Wars narrative…Rey and Ben Solo can quite literally save people from dying by using the Force…Was this not the entire reason Anakin Skywalker turned to the Dark Side to begin with? Because he was seduced by a legend that one can prevent death through use of the Force? Then these two just… dew it… with no explanation of where they figured out how.
Then we have just overall over the top madness. Death Stars attached to every ship in a fleet, again the Snokes in test tubes, the Emperor hooked up to a life support system quite literally repeating his lines from prior films, firing lightning into the sky, etc.
It was entertaining, I won’t deny that, but it was to me by far the least interesting and most disappointing film in the canon.
Anakin did not have access to the Ancient Jedi Texts that Rey did and due to not being a Master was kept from accessing the full Jedi Archives.
Ironic how if Anakin let Mace kill Palpatine he would have been rewarded with the title Jedi Master(Mace told him to wait in the Council Chambers for a reason and the Council Chambers are the place one is promoted to Jedi Master in) and given access to the restricted part of the Archives granting him Force Healing.
Of course considering the Rise of Skywalker film the Jedi Master Mace Windu regardless of intentions would have been possessed by Darth Sidious/Darth Bane if he did succeed in killing him causing the Galaxy to go through even more elaborate political schemes as a result!
Would love to watch a couple of Star Wars Infinities TV Shows each show showing a point of divergence for a specific film with the above scenario being the Revenge of the Sith Star Wars Infinities Show.
Is this stated anywhere in the films? That that is where the healing technique is from? I mean sure, that’s a way around it, but we are never explicitly told it within the films.
I always took the moral of that particular aspect to be what Yoda told Anakin, that he needed to learn at some point to simply let go of his attachments, and then he would be able to see more clearly, and in seeing more clearly be able to help those he loved in an unconditional fashion… of course it may have not been the right thing to say to Anakin at that moment…
Still, it feels like a really glaring “retcon”, as these forums like to say, to me. It feels like it renders Anakins entire tragedy moot for healing others to be seemingly so simple. It kind of cheapens it.
I interpreted that differently. I do not think what the Emperor tells Rey would have applied to Master Windu. The Sith could have all entered Rey because she was both part of Palpatines blood line and at that moment filled with enough inner turmoil to have become herself Sith. Master Windu by contrast was a full fledged Jedi master, whom I doubt was capable of being possessed by Palpatine.
(Also, isn’t there a little part in us all that wanted to see Rey strike down the Emperor and take the throne right there?)
Is it? Anakin gave up his own life for even the chance to protect Padme, and he did so in a far more thorough way that took so very much longer and so much more from him. And then gave up the hollow shell of his own life that he had left a second time to protect his son.
It’s true that Ben Solo sacrifices himself to literally bring Rey back to life, but earlier in the film Rey essentially saves him from dying too without much sacrifice. My point though is that these two characters just kinda doing this thing out of the blue completely cheapens the tragedy of Anakins story arc.
The problem is that Anakin pretty much literally went into Arthas mode where the only person he would listen to was one telling him the lies he wanted to hear. And in service to those lies he became a mass child murderer to kick off his Vader career.
Sure he wasn’t dead yet, but his wound was as mortal as the one that killed Qui-Gon. He was impaled through his mid section by light saber, and Rey just completely healed it through use of the force.
It’s besides the point though, which is that all of this cheapens the tragedy of Anakins downfall. It puts “force healing”, even the force healing of mortal wounds, into the story where previously such a thing was non existent and only spoken of as a rare theoretical possibility which served as the final catalyst for Anakins turn to the Darkside.
I mean, Anakin was as powerful as a Jedi Master, he trained at the height of the Jedi order, and he obviously never once saw such a thing ever performed… otherwise he could have healed his mother, he could have never worried about Padme, and he could have never became Vader.
It is a pretty ridiculous “retcon”, even for Star Wars.
So rare that no one had it even at the height of the Jedi order? When there were countless Jedi across the galaxy? When there was an entire council of aged Masters? So rare, that not only did no one have it, no one even knew it existed to inform Anakin of it?
Like, okay, yes I get you can come up with a million and one explanations for anything that happens, any retcon, because it’s fantasy, but it’s an element of bad story telling that cheapens the tragedy of one of the storys central characters and renders many of the messages and emotions of that narrative completely pointless.
Healed his mother as a Padawan!?! During Revenge of the Sith I can understand having no worries but as a Padawan!?!
Rey had the benefit of learning from Kylo Ren(who learned from Luke who traveled through the Unknown Regions to learn secrets of the Force) through the Dyad and reading the Oldest Jedi Texts on top of that! Anakin wasn’t allowed near such important texts!
A Padawan who was already more powerful than most Jedi… lacking really only the maturity and decision making capabilities to actually be a Master.
The point of my statement though was to point out the larger narrative consequences of the force healing introduced in Rise of Skywalker… which is rendering Anakins tragic story arc (really one of the central story arcs to Star Wars if you ask me) pretty meaningless. Like, the ability which Anakin became Vader and destroyed the Jedi order in vain pursuit of was just actually there the whole time? In some old books? What a joke.
You do understand that Lucas had painted himself into a corner when he decided that the orignal Star Wars movie instead of being a one-off would become part 4 of a series with both a future and a past story. He had to create a set up which would become the background for what would hence be known as Episode 4. And if that required multiple Idiot Balls to be dribbled, then dribbled they would be.
What does that have to do at all with what I am saying though? Lucas had nothing to do with the sequels… if I remember correctly Disney threw out most of his ideas.
If you are saying the prequels were just as dumb, well, I simply disagree. Some contradictions to be sure, but nothing narrative breaking, and the context they add for the original trilogy more than makes up for the mistakes made, in my opinion.
Sure, he gave up his life, his moral compass, and, I want to say innocence, but only in the sense that innocence can be viewed as a continuum rather than a binary, and then he only gave up the part of that continuum that lies between “slaughtered a village in anger” and “killed a bunch of children in cold blood.” All to protect the one he loved.
It’s sort of an interesting mirror. Anakin takes the evil position as he gains information. Where as Ben starts as the bad guy, and becomes a better person with the addition of information. Actually a better moral all around I think.
Take this any further and we’re into “Power of the Primes” territory. Yeah Megatronus did it alll for love. That didn’t stop him from being one scumbag of a pre-Decepticon.
Oh yeah sure. Total scumbag, all the way. Plus I think there a few billion people on Alderaan who don’t give two craps that he made a last minute face turn.
Him finishing his heroic moment dead sure simplified things for Luke and Leia since I’m sure that a whole lot of the New Republic would have insisted on a crimes against specianity trial for his doings as Vader.
