Rise of Skywalker take two
Jan. 1st, 2020 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraAll comments behind cut.
So, I took Q. Despite my feelings about the movie I was pretty excited to be taking my kid to a Star War - Return of the Jedi was the first one I saw in the theater, and now here I was with *my* kid, (double) sunrise, (double) sunset...
I enjoyed it a lot more this time! It really helped to not be asking questions like "what the hell" or "whyyy" and to not have any bad surprises. I already knew all of them, I already got through all that, and so I was much more able to enjoy it for what it was without disappointment or having to brace myself. I found it generally more emotionally effective and coherent, having some idea now from other people's comments of what kind of throughlines they may have been trying to pull off. It also helped a lot that, having already seen it, I wasn't worried about missing anything, and felt much more free to just close my eyes and take breaks whenever the flashing lights were getting to me. (I really do think the cinematography contributed to the frantic, jarring feeling of the film - so many scenes where the camera is relentlessly shaking and the lighting is flickering and so much fast cutting. Unpleasant!)
Q's verdict was that he "sort of liked it". When pressed, he couldn't name any parts that he particularly did or didn't like, just that it had been a lot. It was not only his first Star War in a theater but his first theater action movie of any sort... no, wait, that's not true, we all went to Maleficent. Well, anyways, I think it was a *lot* for him to watch all at once with no breaks on the big screen (and the... non-obvious storyline...), and was kind of overwhelming as an experience. He did find some of it scary and made use of my lap, but not *too* scary. His one big initial reaction was that they "got it wrong" about Luke's lightsaber, which apparently got destroyed in Last Jedi, which I didn't even remember. His report to Junie, when she said she didn't care about spoilers, was that "somehow Palpatine isn't dead!" So that's what stood out to the 7-year-old watcher at first report. I'll be curious to see if I spot anything in his drawing or dramatic play... I remember drawing the terrifying sarlacc pit a few times...
ETA: more insights into the-movie-as-seen-by-Q: Junie was asking questions about who lived and who died and he described Leia as having "infused Kylo Ren's life force into her body so that when he got killed she died", or something like that. "But then Rey healed him so there was just a hole left where the lightsaber went so it didn't really do anything", I'm probably garbling this but it was very interesting. Also "there's a girl bounty hunter now" - I guess anyone in a helmet is a bounty hunter? (I don't think he's ever thought about what a "bounty hunter" is, it's just made up words like "storm trooper"...)
So, I took Q. Despite my feelings about the movie I was pretty excited to be taking my kid to a Star War - Return of the Jedi was the first one I saw in the theater, and now here I was with *my* kid, (double) sunrise, (double) sunset...
I enjoyed it a lot more this time! It really helped to not be asking questions like "what the hell" or "whyyy" and to not have any bad surprises. I already knew all of them, I already got through all that, and so I was much more able to enjoy it for what it was without disappointment or having to brace myself. I found it generally more emotionally effective and coherent, having some idea now from other people's comments of what kind of throughlines they may have been trying to pull off. It also helped a lot that, having already seen it, I wasn't worried about missing anything, and felt much more free to just close my eyes and take breaks whenever the flashing lights were getting to me. (I really do think the cinematography contributed to the frantic, jarring feeling of the film - so many scenes where the camera is relentlessly shaking and the lighting is flickering and so much fast cutting. Unpleasant!)
Q's verdict was that he "sort of liked it". When pressed, he couldn't name any parts that he particularly did or didn't like, just that it had been a lot. It was not only his first Star War in a theater but his first theater action movie of any sort... no, wait, that's not true, we all went to Maleficent. Well, anyways, I think it was a *lot* for him to watch all at once with no breaks on the big screen (and the... non-obvious storyline...), and was kind of overwhelming as an experience. He did find some of it scary and made use of my lap, but not *too* scary. His one big initial reaction was that they "got it wrong" about Luke's lightsaber, which apparently got destroyed in Last Jedi, which I didn't even remember. His report to Junie, when she said she didn't care about spoilers, was that "somehow Palpatine isn't dead!" So that's what stood out to the 7-year-old watcher at first report. I'll be curious to see if I spot anything in his drawing or dramatic play... I remember drawing the terrifying sarlacc pit a few times...
ETA: more insights into the-movie-as-seen-by-Q: Junie was asking questions about who lived and who died and he described Leia as having "infused Kylo Ren's life force into her body so that when he got killed she died", or something like that. "But then Rey healed him so there was just a hole left where the lightsaber went so it didn't really do anything", I'm probably garbling this but it was very interesting. Also "there's a girl bounty hunter now" - I guess anyone in a helmet is a bounty hunter? (I don't think he's ever thought about what a "bounty hunter" is, it's just made up words like "storm trooper"...)
