The Rise of Skywalker: Uneven, Patched Together, and Stuck Cleaning Up After The Last Jedi

After the utter disaster that was (and still is) The Last Jedi, Disney Star Wars had their work cut out for them. That movie fractured the fan base in a way the prequels never quite managed. The Last Jedi sits near the bottom of a lot of people’s rankings. On mine it is dead last, worse even than the Star Wars Holiday Special.

That left The Rise of Skywalker in an ugly spot before a single frame was shot. First it had to walk back some of the more egregious choices Rian Johnson made. The Holdo Maneuver had to be treated as a statistical anomaly because that one stunt quietly invalidated the first seven movies. Then came the 180 on Rey’s parentage. And those are just two of the messes the movie spends its opening stretch trying to mop up.

Don’t get me wrong. The Rise of Skywalker has plenty of problems of its own. Being saddled with the previous film did not help. The final battle, with what feels like fifty billion Star Destroyers sitting in the ocean and needing a single point to launch all of them? Get the hell out of here with that. It is the kind of idea that sounds big in a pitch meeting and falls apart the second you think about it for more than ten seconds.

Some things I did like. The Sith wayfinder worked. The dagger and the callback to the Emperor’s throne room on the Death Star worked too. Some folks will call that “jangling keys.” Fine. At least it felt like a plot trying to move forward instead of the “Gotcha! Subverted expectations!” approach of The Last Jedi. Disney Star Wars looks great and is stunning visually, that is never in doubt but the story is.

In all, The Rise of Skywalker is not so much a bad movie as an uneven one. Its most vehement detractors tend to be the same people who are the most vehement defenders of The Last Jedi. Make of that what you will.

The movie sits in an awkward place. A good chunk of the fan base hates it because it undid so much of The Last Jedi. Another chunk is simply “meh” on it. And some of us (myself included) are still a little confused about what the movie was even trying to accomplish.

No matter how you feel about the film itself, the real problem is the lack of structure across the three sequels. Two different directors who, by all appearances, did not collaborate. An auteur in the middle chapter claiming to be “a fan” when that claim looks shakier the longer you sit with the finished product. There was no shared arc. There was a first movie that set things up, a second movie that knocked most of it over, and a third movie that tried to stand the pieces back up in two hours.

But overall of this the odor of the Last Jedi permeates. I know I keep circling back to this, but the story of this movie can't be told without the mistakes of the prior one taken into account. 

Who is to blame for all this? Stops and starts with Disney itself. They could closed out the story with what the fans wanted but apparently let two guys randomly do stuff that looked like Star Wars but felt like something very different. 

And there you have it. The main saga of nine films goes out with a whimper in a lot of ways. No real reunion of Luke, Leia, and Han. Rey taking the Skywalker name at the end. It never had the sense of finale that Return of the Jedi managed, hokey spots and all. It never had the tragic weight of Revenge of the Sith. The Rise of Skywalker feels patched together, and it shows.

How about you? Did you come away with the same take?

Terrible Trouble at Tragidore, As Bad as they Say?

 

Lest it never be said that I won’t call something bad if it’s a 2nd Edition product.

Like I outlined before, some adventures and modules just suck. They sit at the opposite end of the spectrum from the greatest modules of all time. Terrible Trouble at Tragidore has a reputation that puts it firmly in that bottom tier. The question is whether the reputation is earned.

The adventure came packaged with the 1989 AD&D 2nd Edition Dungeon Master’s Screen. It is a short module, only sixteen pages, written by Jean and Bruce Rabe for characters of levels 5–8. On paper that sounds harmless enough. A quick one-shot to go with the new screen. In practice it has become one of those modules people still bring up decades later when the conversation turns to the worst published adventures of the era.

The setup is simple to the point of being thin. The town of Tragidore is in trouble. Able-bodied men are disappearing. The player characters are expected to investigate, head into the surrounding area, and eventually deal with the source of the problem. What they find involves drow, a lamia, and a mining operation that never quite makes sense. Along the way there are encounters that feel like they were written to frustrate rather than challenge, including the infamous bandits who pretend to be vampires by holding sharpened stakes in their mouths.

That one detail alone has lived in infamy for a reason 

First gargoyles without wings (aka Gargoyle) and now fake vampires? Ugh. Lets get it together early 2e modules!

The bigger problems are structural. The adventure is heavily railroaded. The logic of the plot is shaky at best. At least the drow remain underground in a lair.

Several encounters exist mainly to strip the party of gear or force them down a predetermined path. That feels clumsy. It does not trust the players, and it does not give the Dungeon Master much room to make the material work.

I have a soft spot for short, self-contained adventures from the late TSR period (Book of Lairs I and II looking at you.) Some of them still hold up as quick evening games. This one does not. The reputation is not pure internet exaggeration (see below). The adventure earns most of the criticism it receives.

That does not mean it is completely without value. The maps are clear. A determined Dungeon Master could strip out the worst ideas and salvage a couple of locations. But as written, Terrible Trouble at Tragidore is a strong contender for the lower ranks of published AD&D adventures. It is not the absolute worst thing TSR ever put out, but it is close enough that the distinction barely matters.

Sometimes a module is famous for being good. Sometimes it is famous for being memorable. And sometimes it is famous because nearly everyone who reads it comes away thinking the same thing: this one really is as bad as they say.

Still, all that said, it doesn't knock The Forest Oracle off the pedestal as all time worst...that one is LEGENDARILY BAD.

Thoughts on Terrible Trouble at Tragidore, such as it is?