How I would Improve Star Wars Episode 8

If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?...why Pokematic "hi."

Well I already wrote a fan story map for Episode 9, and I decided "might as well do Episode 8 since that's where everything fell apart." I know I said "I liked it," but I was naïve at the time (or in denial), it sucked. Since it would be to easy to just "scrap everything, start anew," I wanted to work within the confines of what I laid out in my Episode 9 rewrite and what was done in Episode 7. Basically I have to end in the same place (Rey has no master, Kylo is going to try to take over the galaxy, Snoke is dead, Rey's parents are nobodies) and start in the same place (Rey finds Luke hiding on a far off planet).

OK first off, I'm not even going to waste my time rewriting the Finn and Poe sub-plots; the ones where Finn and Rose go to the gambling planet to find a code breaker and Poe's attempt at mutiny to save the fleet in the slow moving space race, and both of those ultimately lead to nothing. Yeah, those could have been cut entirely and nothing really would have changed, it was all filler. One could argue "it lets us learn more about Finn and Poe, and introduces this new character Rose," but I don't think we learn anything new about any of them (we all know Poe is "the hot shot pilot," Finn doesn't understand the world, and no one cares about Rose). I don't even know where to start with this because I can replace it with anything and it would make just as much sense. Maybe Finn and Poe get onto a First Order ship and steal some plans, find themselves able to stop them from destroying a resistance base but that would result in them destroying another base, and they have to make a Sophie's Choice and live with the consequences. Anything not "slow space race running out of fuel, sacrifice all our ships" and "we are weapons dealers, we make money off both sides, real world commentary."

The main thing I want to look into is Luke and Rey's story. The main thing we need to answer is "why was Luke absent from the first movie?" I'm going to take an unpopular opinion, but I'm going to keep Luke as a defeated old man that ran away, and he is responsible for creating Kylo Ren. Before you click away, hear me out. Luke is the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy at the end of Episode 6 (because he's the last), and in the events between Episode 6 and Episode 7 Luke tries to start a new Jedi order and it doesn't work out as evident by there being no Jedi in Episode 7, and when the First Order is taking over the galaxy in Episode 7 Luke is absent. If Luke wasn't a defeated old man, don't you think he would be there next to his sister fighting the First Order? For what reason would Luke have to be out on some deserted planet with no way for anyone to find him while the galaxy fell to ruin if he wasn't hiding? If he was off developing some "super force technique," he would have trusted Han or Leia with that information and his whereabouts if necessary (and it certainly was necessary), but they didn't know where he is. Luke also has a history of self doubt and cockiness, it's his character flaw in Episode 4 and 5 that he must overcome in Episode 6. I don't think it is out of character for Luke to be so humiliated after a defeat to be driven into a life of solitude; plus, I am going to have him screw up SO badly that it would be hard for anyone to show their face let alone imperfect Luke Skywalker.

OK, so here's the back story for why Luke is ashamed and ran away. Between Episode 6 and 7 Luke finds some force sensitive younglings and sets out to train a new generation of Jedi, and in his first class is his nephew Ben Solo. Luke has 2 small problems that come together to form one major problem though; Luke is a gray Jedi (a good Jedi that does not let occasional use of the dark side corrupt him), and his Jedi training is incomplete and therefore doesn't know how to teach. In Episode 5 Ben Kenobi and Yoda tell Luke that his training is incomplete, and in Episode 6 Vader and Palpatine tell Luke "join us in order to complete your training." Luke is barely a Jedi Knight, and in the Prequels only masters could take on padwans. Luke is the highest ranking and most skilled Jedi now because he is the only one, but that doesn't mean his is meant to teach. Luke also engages with the dark side and does things that are against the light Jedi way. In Episode 6 he can be seen force choking the guards at Jabba's palace. The only other characters to do this are dark Jedi (and Asoka, who was trained by Darth Vader; you never see pure light Obi-Wan use it), and the lore says "this is a dark force power." Luke also abandoned his Jedi training to help his friends, because he has worldly ties to people, something that draws Jedi to the dark side (see Anakin), and no light Jedi have, but Luke has those worldly ties and therefore isn't the "pure light Jedi" that padwans would need. Gray Jedi can be good teachers (see Qui-Gon), but they must also be great Jedi masters and not barely Jedi knights. For these reasons, Luke was doomed to fail as a teacher.

Here's how it went down. Luke has set-out to start the new Jedi Order, and he finds 5 force sensitive younglings, including his nephew. Luke teaches them the ways of the force, and force ghost Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin consult him on his teaching techniques. They are quite pleased with Luke's teachings, except for the fact that he sometimes incorporates dark force in the lessons. As a gray Jedi, Luke thinks there is no bad force, just bad users, and for one to be a full Jedi one must have respectful use of the dark side. All of the padawans are shaping up to be great Jedi, all except for Ben Solo. All 3 force ghosts warn Luke that Ben is not taking away the proper information from his lessons, and that he is being seduced by the dark side. Luke calls out Obi-Wan and Yoda saying "you said the same thing about my father and I ended up being right about him still being good," and then addresses Anakin "and had they taught you a healthy understanding and respect for the dark side like Qui-Gon would have done I wouldn't have had to bring you back, I see the good in your grandson the same way that I saw the good in you, and I'm going to do for him what should have been done for you." That's the cockiness of Luke, and he's not even wrong on it; Obi-Wan and Yoda were wrong about Vader being unredeemable, and Qui-Gon could have given Anakin the proper training to be a powerful gray Jedi.

Luke ends up being wrong though, he isn't able to reign in Ben's dark tendencies, and this is when Ben find secret Palpatine apprentice Snoke. At the end of Episode 7 we don't know who Snoke is, or where he came from after the sith were wiped out at the end of Episode 6, and we need to find out the answers in this movie because Snoke is dead in Episode 9. We know that Vader was Palpatine's true apprentice in Episodes 3-6, but Palpatine is constantly surrounded by people and followers, so maybe there was a force sensitive user that he didn't officially train but let him listen in on the lessons with Darth Vader, and he "secretly" learned the ways of the dark side of the force. That, or Snoke is Darth JarJar after he drops the fool act and disfigures himself to be unrecognizable. Both are equally legitimate as far as I'm concerned and either way, Snoke and Ben are drawn to each other and Snoke promises to teach Ben the ways of the dark side. Before Snoke can teach Ben, he has to sever his ties to his Jedi teachings, by killing all of his classmates and master Luke. Ben agrees, and one night he kills all his class mates in their sleep. Ben then goes to kill Luke, but Luke pulls the old "pillow under the blanket emerge from shadows" routine, and force restrains Ben while trying to talk sense into him. Ben is to strong though, and breaks free of Luke's force restrains and charges at Luke with a light saber. Luke pulls out his light saber and blocks the strike, again telling Ben "I won't fight you, I sense the good in you, it's not too late." Ben isn't hearing any of this and cuts off Luke's legs as he draws his light saber down off Luke's light saber, and then force chokes Luke. When he thinks Luke is dead, he throws him off to the side and sets fire to the Jedi temple. Luke isn't dead though, and force levitates himself to safety.

Leia feels the disturbance at the Jedi temple when Ben starts killing his classmates and finds a dying Luke in the rubble. She takes him to get medical treatment and like his father now has mechanical legs. This is OK because we don't actually see Luke's legs at the end of Episode 7, and prosthetics are very life like in this universe so even if we did it's still plausible. As is to be expected, Luke is distraught; his 3 guides warned him about Ben, they told him he was making a grave mistake, and he did it anyway because he thought he knew better, and he drove his nephew to the dark side which resulted in the death of his other 4 students and crippling of himself. He blames himself, and doesn't know how to live with himself. Leia tries to console him, as does Han saying "kid, Ben just has that bad boy smuggler blood in him, you remember how hard it was to get me to care about people," but Luke is just too broken up. Han tells Luke about how he saw Ben going after political power and that he's the only one who can stop him, but Luke says he can't do that now because he's too weak and not used to these robotic legs, and he has to go away for a while to train himself up. Leia offers to join him since she is also strong in the force and wants to refine her abilities, but Luke said "no, I have to go alone, and can't be bothered." Luke finds the planet and does some training, but fails badly (falls over, can't lift rocks anymore, burns himself on his light saber, things like that), and just gives up because he realizes he will never be able to beat Kylo Ren.

Now that we have "why Luke was absent from Episode 7," how does that influence him with Rey in episode 8? Luke still is not going to accept his returned light saber, but instead of disrespectfully throwing it over his shoulder, he's going to drop it and sulk away. The subtle difference here is by throwing it over his shoulder, Luke is saying "I am above this, it's garbage," whereas if he just drops it he is showing his defeatist attitude saying "I can't even bring myself to hold this, I'm not worthy." Here he is too humble. Luke still doesn't want to train Rey, but it's because he doesn't think he is good enough to train another Jedi, not because he wants the Jedi to end. The conflict of "Luke refuses to train Rey" is still present and gives us something deeper than Yoda on Dagobah, but why Luke is refusing is different and is far more in line with who he is. Luke avoids Rey similarly to how he did in actual Episode 8, but he's hiding from himself and saying "I'm washed up, a has been, I can't teach you anything, you're better off figuring it out for yourself." This goes on until one night when Luke is meditating he does a similar thing that Yoda did in Episode 5, by arguing with disembodied force ghosts.

Luke: She's very persistent, just won't take no for an answer.

Yoda: Another persistent padawan, she sounds just like.

Luke: *sigh* I just don't think I can take on another apprentice after what happened last time.

Obi-Wan: If I had said the same thing, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.

Luke: *sigh* I wasn't able to stop Kylo Ren when I was whole, how am I going to stop him now that I'm broken?

Anakin: Son, I lost a lot more than you did and that didn't stop me. No one is asking you to fight Kylo Ren, all you're being asked to do is train the one who can.

Luke reluctantly agrees to train Rey, but only after he warns her about how he's a terrible teacher and that he is responsible for Kylo Ren. Rey reassures him that she is not like Kylo Ren, and she will stop him but only if Luke teaches her the ways of the force. There's some training montages, but they're all unsuccessful. Luke is trying to show Rey how to stack rocks, but he can't do it himself and Rey gets frustrated. She tries to encourage him (a student teaches the teacher thing), but it isn't working. This is when we have Kylo Ren do the force talk with Rey, because that wasn't an entirely bad idea just not the best executed. Kylo can still be "conflicted and salvagable," and they both try to convince each other to join their side, and Kylo is still trying to sew doubts about Luke and the light side in Rey, just that it would be based on strength and how weak the light side is compared to the dark side, point out crippled and weak Luke as the prime example, and how even as a dark padawan he was able to overpower a light Jedi knight. When Luke finds out about these conversations, he completely gives up. "Rey, I can't train you anymore, you are going to fall to the dark side like Kylo Ren, and maybe you should because I am weak." Rey frustrated storms off and says something like "I now see the legends about the great Luke Skywalker were myths, works of fiction, I believed in you not because you were a great Jedi master, but because you were a nobody farm boy, like me, and despite that you were able to save the galaxy, but now I see I was wrong to believe in you. I'm going to stop Kylo Ren, with or without your training." As Luke watches her fly away in the Falcon, her words really sink in, and some rocks start to levitate behind him. Luke's back.

The confrontation between Rey and Snoke would be kind of similar. Here we would get more exposition and back story about how Snoke found and trained Kylo, and say "I secretly trained under the great Darth Sidious and became equal in power to him," or "I am a powerful sith lord, because meesa masterin de chaos." He offers to train Rey, and Kylo still kills him, and a better choreographed fight ensues, and Kylo still does so because he wants to rule the galaxy with Rey. This leads into what I did with Episode 9.

The "not Hoth" battle can still happen, but maybe make it "more unlike Hoth," like a desert planet. Luke can also come back for one final battle, but this time Leia's going to help (because she also has the force, but just isn't as well versed as Luke). They tag team Kylo to buy the resistance time, and when the resistance is able to get away safely and Rey reaches them to see what is happening, they are both struck down a la Ben Kenobi call back. This tears Rey up because now she is truly alone and gives her some reason for her angst in Episode 9 (there are no more Jedi masters to learn from, she knew Leia would train her but now she can't, and she recognizes that she is not ready to take on Kylo).

And this is where we end Episode 8. This leads well into my fan script for Episode 9. The only thing that would need to change is the conversation between Kylo and Vader, where Kylo says "but Uncle Luke tried to kill me." It would have to be something like this:

Kylo: but I killed master Luke, and master Leia, and master Snoke, and my classmates. I am irredeemable.

Anakin: I too killed my masters and Jedi padawans, and I was still able to return to good.

Well that was fun. I hope you enjoyed my little Star Wars fan script, and how to improve the worst main-line Star Wars movie. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic Reviews Star Wars Episode 9 The Rise of Skywalker

If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?...why Pokematic "hi."

Star Wars the Rise of Skywalker, the final movie in the Skywalker story, and one that has the difficult job of fixing all the damage that Last Jedi did. Yes, I know in my review of Last Jedi I called it "pretty good," but I was blinded by the uniqueness and in denial of how bad it was. No, Last Jedi was bad. Not Solo bad, but there was a lot of irreversible damage to the series that could not be repaired. There have been many people better than I who have gone in depth onto why Last Jedi is bad (MauLer, RedLetterMedia, and Robot Foot come to mind). So I'm going to get this out of the way and state the obvious, this is not a "perfect movie," because it is impossible for this to be a "perfect movie" after what Last Jedi did. I'd go so far as to say it's impossible for Episode 9 to be a "great movie" after the complete destruction of the Star Wars foundation that happened with Last Jedi. Even Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, and Quentin Tarantino working together in perfect harmony to deliver the best movie ever couldn't fully bring Rise of Skywalker beyond "well I guess this is the best that could be done given what they had to work with." So bear that in mind when I say "JJ did the best he could given what he had to work with." I'm going to keep this as spoiler free as I can, but there's only so much I can go with.

First and maybe most important, Rey was turned into an ACTUAL character and not a Marry Sue, as best she could. In Episode 8 (and to an extent Episode 7), Rey is just "naturally gifted in the force, she doesn't need to struggle and grow and is boring," (at least that's how the criticism goes, which I agree with to an extent). Now obviously Rey can't "unlearn everything and have a real Jedi training," but there was still room for growth and struggle, and JJ finds a way for Rey to have a struggle, be conflicted, stumble (literally and figuratively), and I think it works, as best it can. JJ finds an interesting way to make "Marry Sue Rey" into a flaw that she must overcome. As Dr Ian Malcolm said, "it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox and now you're selling it you want to sell it." That I think is the best way to describe Rey's short character arc without spoiling what happened specifically. JJ takes the unearned power Rey has and uses it to build a conflict.

Next, there's a far better overall conflict. While Episode 7 was "lets blow-up the death star" and Episode 8 was "slow moving resources race with some weird political commentary on the economics of war, with Rey not needing Luke's training," Episode 9 was "the First Order is on the rise, the Resistance is on their last hope, it's up to our team to save the day, for realz though." None of this "retell episode 4" or "tell a bad story just to subvert expectations" nonsense. It's really a return to "good guys good, bad guys bad, there is pure evil and there is redemption," which is welcomed because I couldn't deal with another "the bad guys are also the good guys because capitalism is profit."

Another great character building is all the "neutered" characters have returned to their greatness. Poe is respected and not told "sit down and shut up, the grown-ups are talking." Luke isn't a grouchy old hermit that just wants to die (ghost Luke was fully reformed and is the wise old man we wanted him to be). We even see some unexpected returns that REALLY add to the story and do the best they can to redeem themselves after Ryan tried to destroy them.

Now there is a bit of an elephant in the room, and that is Leia. I don't remember who said it (I think it was Midnight's Edge, but I can't find the right video), but I remember hearing "the original plan for Episode 9 was Leia would be the one to complete Rey's training, but with Carrie Fisher passing they had to craft a story around alternate shots and bloopers from previous films." Uuuuuuggghhhhhhh, yeahhhhh, with how few lines and little screen time Leia has you can tell a lot of creative editing had to be done. Again, "they did the best they could with what little they had." I remember someone saying "if they did reshoots of episode 8 to make it so Luke lives and Leia dies after Marry Poppins'ing herself out of space, they wouldn't be in the predicament they forced themselves into." And it's true, you can tell Leia was meant to have a large part in the story but they had very little to work with. I think they did a pretty decent job, I've had to change my vision for short films that didn't pan out how I wanted due to actor conflicts, and while it would have been better to reshoot some things in Episode 8 to kill Leia instead, Ryan left a smoldering pile of you know what for JJ to work with, so it's really the best that could have been done.

Now for action scenes. They were pretty good. I kept my eye on the choreography to see if there would be another "guard fighting the air" bit, and there wasn't from what I could tell. The climatic battle at the end, really entertaining. The back and forth Rey and Kylo have with fighting, really good. What I think I liked most about them is they were more "fights of will and conviction" similar to that of the lightsaber battles of the original trilogy. A lot of critics and analysts have pointed out that the lightsaber battle between Vader and Obi-wan was more taunting and a battle of the mind given weight by the lightsabers, and the same can be said for the fight between Luke and Vader in Episode 6 where more words were said than lightsaber swings. While I definitely enjoy the high energy fights of the prequels, those only really work when it's not "we have loads of character tension between us, we need to talk it out," (Darth Maul said 2 lines, he's just evil and that's all you need to know, Duku is a bad guy and there's no changing his position, Anikin and Obi-wan are young men in their prime and Anikin's rage is at it's boiling point and needs to be released physically, and everyone wants to kill each other). Rey and Kylo are all about trying to turn each other, they don't necessarily want to kill each other, so their fights (along with other fights Rey has) are more talking than fisticuffs. All the action is really good with how it does things.

There's also the overall tone of the movie. Whereas Last Jedi wanted to be "super serious" while also "lulz we're not that serious, here's some jokes," to the point where it was tonal whiplash, Rise of Skywalker had a pretty consistent tone. Yes, there were lighter moments and instances of comedy, but it never really broke the tension because it was done in such a way that it was a failed attempt at breaking the tension, which is how pretty much every other movie was (except for Episode 1, which is probably the most light hearted of the movies because it takes place before the real rise of the sith). One other thing with tone that, while consistent, still caught me off guard, was the swearing. There are like 5 instances of mild profanity (damn and hell), which wouldn't feel out of place unless you're a super fan like me that has basically memorized all the scripts of episodes 1-6 and knows the only other time even mild profanity was used was when Dex said "they're cloners, damn good ones too" in Attack of the Clones. While it's not "bad," it's just "unexpected" (this is how you "subvert expectations" properly).

Now don't get the wrong idea and think "this is all good." The main thing that comes to mind is how Kylo was handled. Throughout the movies I never really bought "he is evil, just confused." He always kind of came off as a "Prince Zuko" kind of bad guy, where "he wants to be an antagonist, but doesn't feel like he's doing it because it's his only option and doesn't REALLY want to be bad." In Avatar the Last Airbender, Zuko was bad because he's a fire bender and he needs to get the avatar to restore his honor, but it isn't fully committed to being evil. I really got that impression in Episode 7 when he threw tantrums and wore the helmet "because he wants to honor his grandfather," and it seemed like Snoke was the puppet master. Then in episode 8 the discussions between him and Rey really felt "I'm not really evil, just confused" (which was really amplified with Luke "I'm going to kill him in his sleep" Skywalker). Now in episode 9, I still can't take him seriously. I don't believe that he is the leader of the first order and he built this because of his charisma; rather he feels like a trust fund kid that wants to impress his dad but doesn't really know how. JJ kind of tries to explain that away with the new villain he introduces (after Ryan kills Snoke off for no real reason), but this is once again "the best he could do," and I can't place the blame on Ryan for this one since it goes all the way back to Episode 7.

Which brings me to the new villain. While this is a really good villain that managed to retcon the nonsense of Episode 8 killing Snoke, he comes out of nowhere and is really confusing. Like, "wait, he was the puppet master all along, and he fits into all of this without having any noticeable influence so far." I mean, maybe after rewatching episode 7 and 8 I could find some hints, maybe, but seeing that I know Ryan threw out JJ's road map for the sequel trilogy, and it's pretty clear JJ threw out Ryan's direction after episode 8, but this really came out of left field and "was the best way they could explain away the problems of episode 8." I don't necessarily "hate" this direction since it was a pretty awesome climax, but it definitely feels "unearned."

There's also the final scene. As nice of a scene it was, it feels "unearned." I won't go into why it specifically feels unearned, because that would be spoiler, but it feels more like raw fan service without actually needing to be there. It ties up a thread that wasn't actually loose, and probably should have remained untied.

Overall, I think it's worth matine price, or at least a redbox rental just to see how it concludes. It's not the best movie out there, and I wouldn't blame you for wanting to skip it. I know I did after how badly I was burned on Solo, and Last Jedi retroactively. However, it's kind of like Aquaman and Wonder Woman, where they technically are part of the Snyderverse of DC movies, but they realize the Snyderverse is trash and do the bare minimum to acknowledge that and try to exist on their own. What I really want is for the fan editors of the world to make an "Episode 8/2, The Real Jedi," where it's like 30 minutes of things that are crucial to the events of Episode 9 (and maybe some battle scenes), but remove all the "subverting expectations" and other character destroying malarkey, because I really would be happy if we could all completely forget that Last Jedi happened. Anyway, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Random end card other thought, before the movie there was a trailer for "Free Guy," a movie about a videogame NPC that decides he's going to be a hero, or something. It's a Ryan Reynolds action comedy movie that's being released under 20th Century Fox, and they said "from the same studio that brought you Beauty and the Beast remake, Aladdin remake, and Lion King remake," since those were all under the Disney brand. It looks like a funny movie.