Just me venting about TROS
So, there are lots of takes online about how the TROS makers don’t know what a good storytelling is or that they don’t know how to make a movie but I don’t think this is the case. Because the way they very deliberately went against the messages in TLJ shows that they knew exactly what they were doing. The reason it didn’t make sense and felt stitched together is because it was stitched together. You can’t make a movie with those messages and expect it to make sense. They know it, they just don’t care because to them it never was about making art or go for a deeper meaning. It’s about making money and conveying THEIR message. They wanted a pro-war ad, that glorifies self-sacrifice, reiterates the warning that snitches end up in ditches and has a badass pilot as the hero. And they did just that. They don’t care about it making sense or anything else. Because the machine has to keep going.
They specifically wanted more trio time so they put a mcguffin and wrote a bunch of trio scenes. It made no sense, the the mcguffin wasn’t the point, it was just a tool to get the trio to interact. Sure Rian made the force bond to get Rey and Kylo to interact in TLJ but it had meaning – it had the purpose to get them to talk without fighting, to get Rey to see her enemy as a human, to further expand the idea that the Force is not a super power to blow ships out of the sky (Rian actually said that in the bonus material and ironically that’s one of the things TROS did) but the connection between all living beings and that love is the most powerful force of all. None of the TROS mcguffins had any depth.
Another thing they wanted was a badass pilot for the incels who felt threatened by the “listen to women message” in TLJ. So they gave those insecure men Poe to relate to. Just in the very beginning of the movie we see him in a badass wild chase, piloting and wrecking the Falcon, but dismissing Finn when he says Rey won’t be happy about it with the smug, juvenile line “Rey’s not here”. And when he’s confronted by her for damaging HER ship, he shows NO remorse or shame, he’s not even bashful, he self-assuredly dismisses her protests, casually puts her in her place and starts criticizing her in his turn and in the end of the conversation, she’s the one who bends and backs down. The message: “ Hey, incels see this hotshot, we made him for you! ❤️ See how unimpressed he is with that M*ry S*e, he’s not afraid to show the last jedi herself who’s boss, see how he orders her around.“
They also needed a noble death so they can glorify the power of sacrifice. That’s why Ben had to die. They don’t care about his “crimes”, they don’t care about him being a victim of abuse or that he is the lost son who finally found his way back. Any war has sacrifices, so to accept dying in a war, people have to be convinced beforehand in the value of the self-sacrifice for a “noble” cause against an evil enemy. Once people have reverence for self-sacrifice, it’s no problem sending them on a “patriotic” war so the rich could get richer.
But a thing the powerful execs do care about is that Ben/Kylo rebelled against his master and not only he wasn’t punished for it, but succeeeded. And they REALLY DON’T WANT to encourage that type of dangerous fantasies in the plebs. The killing of Snoke is a victory for a man killing his abuser and successfully fighting for his freedom. And at the very beginning of TROS we see this being mockingly belittled by Palpatine when in an amused, condescending manner he calls Ben/Kylo “my dear boy” and informs him he made Snoke. And then he convinces/forces the man who fought tooth and nail for his freedom to bow to a new master and be his b*tch.
Ben/Kylo had to be sacrificed not only to appease all the hatred against reylo but to convey the message that once you f*cked up there’s no turning back, no matter what you do. The only way you’ll be forgiven is to die for someone more worthy and pure. That’s why Kylo/Ben’s humanity and his relationship with Rey had to be diminished as much as possible (they couldn’t completely erase Kylo’s humanity or Reylo because Rian’s TLJ made so strong case for both and that’s exactly what they mean each time they say he tied their hands - they were denied a baddie to use as a punching bag for their hero to shine because Rian humanized him and Rey fell in love with him) Ben’s death also perpetuates the exploitative worldview that the inferior and impure ones (Ben/Kylo) have to be sacrificed so that the superior and pure could live and prosper (Rey). It’s incredibly nihilistic and predatory and it’s disturbing that it’s packaged & sold as a hopeful tale. It’s also dehumanizing to Rey too because the one thing she wanted was a family and in the beginning of TFA we saw her afraid of ending up alone as she watched the old scavenger but then TROS showed her unaffected and even happy with her love interest being dead and her ending up in a desert.
In TLJ Rey was an intense, determined, spunky young woman who defied Luke after she has had enough of his dismissive behaviour. She bested him in a fight and the narrative was clearly behind her, she was right to do so, she was never punished for it. This is incredibly empowering but also something that makes execs really uncomfortable. I don’t need to tell you they identify with Luke and not with the rebellious, young pleb (a woman furthermore) who whoops his ass. So, to put some ice on that burn, they had to tame her and have her do the humble routine ("I’ll earn your brother’s saber”) and they also made sure to say out loud her force sensitivity is not hers and that she owes it to a powerful man: “You don’t have power. You have his power. You’re a P*lpatine.”
The other thing they conveniently swept under the rug was humanizing the stormtroopers. Yes, they mentioned that some group of troopers laid down their weapons and decided to defect but look how it happens - offscreen, at some undefined point in the past - they defect peacefully, their rebellion is less of a rebellion, it’s a civilized, peaceful, RESPECTFUL disobedience. (And we all know how effective civilized, peaceful protests are and who their biggest proponents are.) We are only told they laid down their weapons and left. We never see stormtroopers actually rebelling and fighting against their superiors in the First Order and that’s the whole idea. It’s something the big execs don’t want us to indulge in. And also the stormtroopers are the enemy and the enemy shouldn’t be humanized, otherwise we loose one of the necessary components to have a war - a dehumanized enemy, a mindless drone under a mask, that is to be hated, feared and killed. That’s why they put so much effort in romanticizing troopers being killed.
And another trope powerful executives love inserting in movies - snitches end up in ditches. We had this twice in TROS - once with the nameless informant in the beginning and a second time with Hux. Because apparently powerful men really hate and are afraid of being betrayed and that’s why they love inserting this warning message whenever they can - it’s a very wide spread trope - about the traitor who gets mercilessly and sadistically punished for their disloyalty. And that’s exactly what happens in TROS.
The informant who snitches to the resistance is killed and we see his chopped off, bloodied head being unceremonously and demonstratively put on a table in a close shot - it’s ruthless, it’s sadistic, it’s cynical.
And this happens to Hux too. I won’t get into detail how dirty he was done and how this character could have been a very interesting, compelling and a complex villain because this rant is already long enough and this is not about that. This is post is me trying to articulate what I noticed the makers wanted to convey to us. And just like the informant in the beginning Hux was killed in the same ruthless, sadistic and cynical manner. You know, just in case we didn’t get the message the first time, they reiterated it for us in bold, all caps - SNITCHES END UP IN DITCHES!
And they wanted it all wrapped up in mind numbing CGI action and military propaganda.