I like how moments like this reveal how self-conscious Abrams is as a director in comparison to Lucas, since that principle of “If it’s amazing, they’ll know” clearly isn’t at play in Abrams’ style. It really shows how little faith he has in his audience.
5. And lastly, I like how the films showed that you can plagiarize the iconography of Lucas’ films all you want, but if you can’t match the quality of his scriptwriting and directing, some people in the audience will walk out with a sick, empty feeling inside.
These have been five incredibly important things I learned from my least favorite Star War, and I find them to be very positive takeaways.
6. One more thing I love about TROS is how Rey basically goes through the same arc Jake takes the entirety of TLJ to go through, but in a single scene. Further calling attention to how much of TLJ was pointless filler.
And she doesn’t just renounce the Jedi out of misplaced fear of her own proximity to the dark side, as Jake did (if you steelman RJ’s film). She was brought to that place by actually doing what Jake only imagined himself doing: murdering Kyle.
AND she actually started her own fire, while Jake needed a shitty refabrication of the Yoda puppet to do it for him!
